Serge Jabbour, MD: The Current Landscape of Diabetes Care

Recently, a team of investigators discussed the rapidly changing landscape of diabetes care and the emerging role of insulin therapies.

The "Institutional Perspectives in Diabetes: New Advances in Insulin Therapy for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes" hosted discussions on patient communication and education, insulin selection and administration, and new options in insulin, including Insulin Regular U500.

Program chair Serge Jabbour, MD, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University highlighted these important discussions in an interview with HCPLive.

Jabbour explained the big needs when it comes to insulin therapy, ranging from the fear of patients due to hypoglycemia, weight gain, and being an injection to lack of diabetes education.

He additionally noted the major barrier on the physician end of the discusion, in which primary care phyisicans do not start insulin therapy in their patients.

"Many primary care doctors are not comfortable starting insulin, and they don't know what insulin to choose from, the dose to start with, how to titrate insulin, and many fear also hypoglycemia when they start insulin," he said.

Jabbour went on to describe when it is necessary to start insulin, including those with a high HbA1c regardless of other medications or potentially in a catabolic state.

He further explained the unmet needs in diabetes care, including the lack of diabetes educators available to train patients on their condition. Other needs included better guidelines for physicians to understand how to start insulin therapy.

"A big unmet need is to have the guidelines be more clear, and come up with a more concise way for providers on how to start insulin therapy that will make them feel more comfortable doing it," Jabbour said.