Semaglutide Use Tied to Slightly Increased nAMD Risk in Older Diabetic Patients: JAMA

Canada: A recent observational cohort study from Canada revealed that older diabetic patients taking GLP-1 receptor agonists-primarily semaglutide-had a small but increased risk of developing neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). The absolute risk remained low, at 0.2% over 3 years among users versus 0.1% in non-users, highlighting the need for further research on this drug class.
The study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, was led by Reut Shor from the Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences at the University of Toronto. It analyzed the long-term ocular safety of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), medications increasingly prescribed for managing diabetes and obesity. Despite their growing popularity, data on their prolonged impact on eye health have been limited.
To investigate this potential concern, the researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study involving 139,002 older adults with diabetes, drawn from administrative health databases in Ontario. The data, covering three years from January 2020 to November 2023, were sourced from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Patients included in the study were aged 66 years or older, had a diagnosis of diabetes, and had not been previously diagnosed with nAMD. The team matched 46,334 GLP-1 RA users to 92,668 non-users, ensuring comparable demographics and comorbidities using propensity score matching.
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