Exenatide for Stress Hyperglycemia

Overview

Stress hyperglycemia is a common phenomenon in cardiac surgery that concerns diabetic and non diabetic patients. It has been shown that perioperative hyperglycemia is an independent risk factor of postoperative mortality and morbidity. The Leuven et al.'s study suggested that strict glycemic perioperative control using an intensive insulin therapy could reduce mortality and morbidity in surgical intensive care's patients. This study included a majority of cardiac surgery patients. Others studies have suggested that the beneficial effect of insulin-based tight perioperative glycemic control might be hampered by iatrogenic hypoglycemia. Moreover, insulin therapy failed to obtain perioperative glycemic stability in most patients. Exenatide (Byetta ®) is an incretin mimetic, characterized by an anti-hyperglycemic effect that depends on the blood glucose level. We hypothesize that continuous intravenous infusion of exenatide could improve perioperative glycemic control and stability and could reduce the risk of iatrogenic hypoglycemia compared to a conventional insulin therapy during the perioperative period of cardiac surgery.

The phase II of the study will assess the safety and the efficacy of a continuous intravenous infusion of exenatide for the management of post operative stress hyperglycemia after planned coronary artery graft bypass (CABG) surgery. A nested cohort study will concern the 24 first patients included in the study (12 patients/group) to assess the impact of a continuous intravenous infusion of exenatide on post operative glycemic variability after planned CABG surgery. The aim of the phase III of the study will compare the efficacy of a continuous intravenous infusion of exenatide to the gold standard treatment, i.e the intravenous infusion of short-acting insulin, for the management of post operative stress hyperglycemia after planned CABG surgery.