Tirzepatide and muscle composition changes in people with type 2 diabetes (SURPASS-3 MRI): a post-hoc analysis of a randomised, open-label, parallel-group, phase 3 trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Tirzepatide in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Analyses were done by modified intention to treat, in the participants enrolled in the MRI substudy with a valid MRI scan at week 52.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, open-label, multicenter and parallel-group study.

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

Being open-label, the Tirzepatide study did not mask who received what.

More than one site took part, so the participants came from several places.

The Tirzepatide group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

SURPASS-3 was a randomised, open-label, parallel-group, phase 3 trial.

Thigh muscle fat infiltration, muscle volume, and muscle volume Z score (invariant to sex, height, weight, and BMI) were quantified by MRI at baseline and week 52.

Observed changes in muscle fat infiltration, muscle volume, and muscle volume Z scores were compared using paired t tests to population-based estimates calculated from multiple linear regression models fitted to UK Biobank data (n=2942), capturing associations with change in body weight.

The SURPASS-3 clinical trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03882970, and is complete.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Muscle, Skeletal, Tirzepatide, Hypoglycemic Agents and Body Composition.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and multicenter study of Tirzepatide.

Results are reported in around 10 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2025 (The lancet. Diabetes & endocrinology), a journal based in England.

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