SGLT-2 Inhibitors Belong to Patients, Not a Specialty or Primary Care: Experts Discuss

"Drugs don't belong to specialties. They ultimately belong to the patients who take them," said renowned cardiologist and professor of medicine Mikhail Kosiborod, MD, during an interview with Patient Care Online.

Kosiborod and Neil Skolnik, MD, professor of family and community medicine and well-known primary care educator, spoke together with Patient Care about how and where the sodium glucose contransporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor class of medications are being prescribed, and whether their full range of potency against cardiometabolic disease is fully appreciated yet, across specialties and in primary care.

What emerged in this first of a 3-part interview between a primary care physician and a cardiology specialist is that SGLT-2 inhibitors are not your grandparents' diabetes drugs and that traditional compartmentalization of drugs, diseases, and patient types serves neither patient or clinician.

For the second part of this interview, please see: Where Should SGLT-2 Inhibitor Therapy Begin? Thoughts from Drs Mikhail Kosiborod and Neil Skolnik

Mikhail Kosiborod, MD, is Professor of Medicine, University of Missouri Kansas City, Vice President, Research, Saint Luke’s Health System, Executive Director, Cardiometabolic Center Alliance, Director, Cardiometabolic Research and Co-director, Haverty Cardiometabolic Center of Excellence, Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, MO.

Neil Skolnik, MD, is Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.