Comment on: Pantalone et al. The Risk of Overall Mortality in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Receiving Glipizide, Glyburide, or Glimepiride Monotherapy: A Retrospective Analysis. Diabetes Care 2010;33:1224–1229

In the article by Pantalone et al. (1), the authors did not identify an increased total mortality risk among individual sulfonylureas (SUs)—glibenclamide versus glimepiride or glipizide—but did suggest that glimepiride may be the preferred SU in patients with history of coronary artery disease (CAD). The authors found that in a retrospective cohort of patients with CAD, the hazard ratio (HR) for mortality in the subgroup of glibenclamide versus glimepiride was 1.36 (95% CI 0.96–1.91); P = 0.081.Pantalone et al. refer to our assessment of total and cardiovascular mortality HRs in patients treated with gliclazide versus glibenclamide (0.33 [95% CI 0.26–0.41] and 0.29 [0.21–0.38], respectively; P < 0.001) …