Effect of hyperglycaemia in combination with moxifloxacin on cardiac repolarization in male and female patients with type I diabetes

Background: Patients with Type 1 diabetes mellitus have been shown to be at a two to ten-fold higher risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) (Svane et al., Curr Cardiol 2020; 22:112) than the general population, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. Hyperglycaemia is a recognised cause of QTc prolongation; a state patients with type 1 diabetes are more prone to, potentially increasing their risk of ventricular arrhythmia. Understanding the QTc prolongation effect of both hyperglycaemia and the concomitant additive risk of commonly prescribed QTc-prolonging drugs such as Moxifloxacin may help to elucidate the mechanism of sudden cardiac death in this cohort. This single-blinded, placebo-controlled study investigated the extent to which hyperglycaemia prolongs the QTc in controlled conditions, and the potential additive risk of QTc-prolonging medications.

Methods: 21 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus were enrolled to a placebo-controlled crossover study at a single clinical trials unit. Patients underwent thorough QTc assessment throughout the study. A 'hyperglycaemic clamp' of oral and intravenous glucose was administered with a target blood glucose of > 25 mM and maintained for 2 h on day 1 and day 3, alongside placebo on day 1 and moxifloxacin on day 3. Day 2 served as a control day between the two active treatment days. Thorough QTc assessment was conducted at matched time points over 3 days, and regular blood sampling was undertaken at matched time intervals for glucose levels and moxifloxacin exposure.

Results: Concentration-effect modelling showed that acute hyperglycaemia prolonged the QTc interval in female and male volunteers with type 1 diabetes by a peak mean increase of 13 ms at 2 h. Peak mean QTc intervals after the administration of intravenous Moxifloxacin during the hyperglycaemic state were increased by a further 9 ms at 2 h, to 22 ms across the entire study population. Regression analysis suggested this additional increase was additive, not exponential. Hyperglycaemia was associated with a significantly greater mean QTc-prolonging effect in females, but the mean peak increase with the addition of moxifloxacin was the same for males and females. This apparent sex difference was likely due to the exclusive use of basal insulin in the male patients, which provided a low level of exogenous insulin during the study assessments thereby mitigating the effects of hyperglycaemia on QTc. This effect was partially overcome by Moxifloxacin administration, suggesting both hyperglycaemia and moxifloxacin prolong QTc by different mechanisms, based on subinterval analysis.

Conclusions: Hyperglycaemia was found to be a significant cause of QTc prolongation and the additional effect of a QTc-prolonging positive control (moxifloxacin) was found to be additive. Given the high risk of sudden cardiac death in type 1 diabetes mellitus, extra caution should be exercised when prescribing any medication in this cohort for QTc effects, and further research needs to be undertaken to elucidate the exact mechanism underlying this finding and explore the potential prescribing risk in diabetes.

Trial registration: NCT number: NCT01984827.