Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity

Real World Evidence for the Pharmacological Treatment of Diabetes: From Clinical Trials to Routine Practice

Diabetes mellitus represents one of the most pressing global health challenges of the 21st century, affecting over 500 million adults worldwide. The pharmacological landscape for diabetes has expanded rapidly, with the introduction of incretin-based therapies, sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, and dual-acting agents alongside established glucose-lowering drug classes. While randomized controlled trials (RCTs) remain the gold standard for evaluating therapeutic efficacy, their strict inclusion criteria, controlled settings, and limited follow-up durations often restrict the generalizability of findings to diverse, real-world patient populations. Real world evidence (RWE), derived from electronic health records, claims databases, patient registries, and post-marketing surveillance, has emerged as an essential complement to RCT data for evaluating how antidiabetic pharmacotherapies perform in routine clinical practice. This Article Collection aims to present the latest advances in RWE research specifically pertaining to the pharmacological treatment of diabetes, ultimately informing evidence-based prescribing and clinical decision-making.

The importance of RWE for antidiabetic pharmacotherapy cannot be overstated. Despite the growing number of glucose-lowering agents available, significant gaps persist between the outcomes observed in clinical trials and those achieved in everyday practice. Patient adherence to prescribed regimens, treatment persistence over time, individualized glycemic targets, and the influence of polypharmacy and comorbidities all shape therapeutic outcomes in ways that RCTs cannot fully capture. Furthermore, regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency increasingly incorporate RWE into their drug approval and post-marketing evaluation frameworks, recognizing its value in supplementing trial-based efficacy data. Understanding how specific antidiabetic drug classes and treatment sequences perform across diverse ethnicities, age groups, and comorbidity profiles is essential for optimizing individualized prescribing strategies, improving glycemic control, and reducing treatment-related adverse events in the real-world setting.

This Article Collection invites original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and narrative reviews that utilize real world data to evaluate the pharmacological treatment of diabetes. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: the effectiveness and safety of emerging and established glucose-lowering agents in routine clinical practice; comparative effectiveness studies of antidiabetic drug classes, including SGLT2 inhibitors, GLP-1 receptor agonists, DPP-4 inhibitors, and insulin formulations, across diverse patient populations; real world treatment patterns, prescribing trends, and therapeutic sequencing strategies; the impact of medication adherence and persistence on glycemic control and long-term clinical outcomes; safety profiles and tolerability of antidiabetic pharmacotherapies as observed in post-marketing surveillance and pharmacovigilance databases; and health economic analyses and cost-effectiveness evaluations of glucose-lowering therapies derived from real world data sources. Contributions should align with the scope of Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo desk assessment and a full peer-review.

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions  prior to submitting a manuscript as it will be rejected if it does not fall within the scope of the journal.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is the 31^st of December 2026

Please contact Menghan Li at [email protected] with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.