Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist exenatide has no acute effect on MRI-measured exocrine pancreatic function in patients with type 2 diabetes: a randomized trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Exenatide in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To investigate the effect of infusion of the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist exenatide on exocrine pancreatic function.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 12 patients taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, men only.

This was a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover study in 12 male patients with type 2 diabetes, treated with oral glucose-lowering agents.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover.

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

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Exenatide, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some patients received a placebo instead of Exenatide, giving a reference point.

In the crossover set-up each of the patients took both Exenatide and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Exocrine pancreatic function was measured using secretin-enhanced magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography.

The primary outcome measure was defined as secretin-stimulated pancreatic excretion volume.

Secondary outcome measures were maximum secretion speed and the time to reach this maximum.

In addition, changes in pancreatic duct (PD) diameter were measured.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Cholangiopancreatography, Magnetic Resonance, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Exenatide, Hypoglycemic Agents, Pancreas, Exocrine, Pancreatic Ducts and Peptides.

Author keywords: exocrine pancreatic function, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, pancreatitis and type 2 diabetes.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Exenatide in 12 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2016 (Diabetes, obesity & metabolism), a journal based in England.

More context: the Exenatide compound page, all human trials.