Optimisation of pharmacological therapy in a patient with a newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes

peer reviewedThe diabetic patient, when type 2 diabetes is newly diagnosed, raises a therapeutic problem commonly observed in clinical practice, which is more complex than expected at first glance. The physician has to select the most appropriate antidiabetic oral agent as first choice, to consider the potential of using combined glucose-lowering therapies, to fix glycaemic target taking into account the individual benefit/risk ratio, and to offer the best protection against cardiovascular complications. The present clinical case illustrates such therapeutic problem describing a patient with a high cardiovascular risk profile who experienced a hypoglycaemic episode after the prescription of glibenclamide following the discovery of a moderate hyperglycaemia