Prospective randomized trial of insulin glargine in acute management of diabetic ketoacidosis in the emergency department: a pilot study

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Insulin Glargine, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

This was a prospective, randomized, controlled trial comparing coadministration of insulin glargine and IV insulin (experimental) with IV insulin (standard care control).

The setting was emergency departments (EDs) in two hospitals in Houston, Texas.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, single-blind and pilot.

Because people in this Insulin Glargine study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Only one side, usually the participants, was kept unaware of whether Insulin Glargine was given.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Insulin Glargine study would be practical.

All patients received IV insulin.

Additionally, the experimental group was given SQ insulin glargine within 2 hours of diagnosis.

Upon closure of anion gap, patients in the control group were subsequently transitioned to long-acting insulin.

In the study group, IV insulin was discontinued and long-acting SQ insulin was reinstituted 24 hours after initial introduction.

The primary outcome of time to closure of anion gap (TCAG) was compared between groups using a general linear model (GLM), adjusting for initial anion gap, etiology, and presence of comorbidities.

What Was Measured

Similarly, the secondary outcome hospital length of stay (LOS) was adjusted for age, etiology, and hospital site in the GLM.

Rate of hypoglycemia and intensive care unit (ICU) admission was compared using Fisher's exact test while ICU LOS was compared using Wilcoxon's two-sample test.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Administration, Intravenous, Blood Glucose, Diabetic Ketoacidosis, Emergency Service, Hospital, Hospitalization, Insulin and Insulin Glargine.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, single-blind and pilot study of Insulin Glargine.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2015 (Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Insulin Glargine compound page.