A recent study published in Current Therapeutic Research highlighted the association of cardiovascular events and heart failure in patients treated with dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors.
The study aimed to determine the effect of DPP4 inhibitors on cardiovascular events and heart failure in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
The study included 79,010 patients diagnosed with T2DM. Forty-one thousand one hundred fifteen patients were assigned to the control group, and 3,7895 patients were assigned to the DPP-4 inhibitor group. The use of DPP-4 inhibitors and the reported cardiovascular outcomes and heart failure events were compared using the PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases. Studies that were randomized trials comparing DPP-4 inhibitors in patients with T2DM, with a study duration of more than 24 weeks, and those that reported cardiovascular outcomes as primary or secondary endpoints were included in this study. To analyse the data, Stata 15 MP was used. Confidence intervals (CI) and odds ratios (OR) were used to represent results. 
It was found that heart failure was not significantly different in T2DM patients with and without DPP-4 inhibitors (OR: 1.06, 95% CI: 0.96,1.18; P = 0.452) during the mean follow-up period ranging from 24 to 302 weeks. In both groups all-cause mortality (OR: 1.03, 95% CI: 0.96,1.11; P = 0.309), nonfatal stroke, stroke (OR: 1.01, 95% CI: 0.78,1.30; P = 0.968), Major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) (include nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), cardiovascular death (OR: 1.01, 95% CI: 0.95,1.08; P = 0.354), and MI (OR: 0.89, 95% CI: 0.73,1.07; P = 0.49) were similar.