Assessing the Impact of Insulin Glargine and Detemir Treatment to Serum Total IGF1 Levels in the Insulin-Naive Type 2 Diabetic Patients.

Aim: The mitogenic potential of analog insulins due to their different insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1) receptor affinity is a situation that causes concern related to cancer risk. We aimed to examine the changes in the serum IGF1 levels formed by insulin glargine and detemir in the insulin-naive type 2 diabetic patients.

Methods: The serum total IGF1 levels of the 62 insulin-naive type 2 diabetic patients were studied before and after 12 weeks of the started treatment with basal insulin analogs. Twenty-two and twenty patients (Group I and II) using the single-dose and double-dose insulin detemir and twenty patients (Group III) using insulin glargine were evaluated.

Results: In Group I and Group II, the average 8.5% and 0.1% increases and in the Group III, 6.5% decreases were determined in the IGF1 values. The IGF1 changes were significant in the men but not in the women.

Conclusion: In our study, it was determined that the insulin glargine depressed the serum IGF1 levels much more when compared to the insulin detemir. This result can be evaluated as the in vivo reflection of the in vitro findings related to the fact that the IGF1 receptor affinity of the glargine is higher.