Implications and challenges of the ACE trial / 中华内分泌代谢杂志

ABSTRACT

ACE is an important clinical trial. It attracted much attention in the field of diabetes and cardiology worldwide. Acarbose did not increase the number of cardiovascular events in ACE, which demonstrated it′s safety in pre-diabetes people who experienced a cardiovascular disease previously. But this agent also did not reduce the composite CVD endpoints, shedding a challenge to the notion that postprandial glucose rise is a specific risk factor to predict cardiovascular events. ACE trial successfully confirmed the effect of acarbose on the prevention of diabetes in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance, bnt to a less extent compared with the STOP-NIDDM trial. The higher number of subjects needed to be treated for the prevention of diabetes in ACE trial than that seen in other intervention trials should be taken into account in the decision making for using acarbose to prevent diabetes in a large scale population as far as the cost-effectiveness is concerned.