Eligibility for and practical implications of Semaglutide in overweight and obese patients with acute coronary syndrome

Aims: Semaglutide has been shown to reduce cardiovascular events in non-diabetic patients with preexisting cardiovascular disease and overweight/obesity in the SELECT trial. Data on the applicability of these results to clinical practice are limited. We evaluated the eligibility for and practical implications of semaglutide in overweight/obese non-diabetic patients with recent acute coronary syndrome (ACS) from a contemporary real-world registry. Methods: Patients from the multicenter START-ANTIPLATELET registry (NCT02219984) were stratified to investigate the proportion of patients eligible for semaglutide >60 days after discharge for ACS (post-acute phase), according to the SELECT trial eligibility criteria: age ≥ 45 years; body mass index ≥27 kg/m²; history of myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, or peripheral artery disease; no diabetes. Major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), defined as a composite of all-cause death, MI, target vessel revascularization, or stroke, and net adverse clinical events (NACE), a composite of all-cause death, MI, stroke, or major bleeding, were assessed at 1-year follow-up. Results: The study population comprised 2940 consecutive ACS patients. At 60 days after discharge, 807 patients (27.4 %) met the SELECT eligibility criteria (SELECT-like group) and 2133 patients were ineligible (not-eligible group). At 1 year, incidence of MACE (4.6 % vs. 8.2 %; p = 0.004) and NACE (3.6 % vs. 7.6 %; p < 0.001) was lower in the SELECT-like group compared to the not-eligible group. Conclusions: In a contemporary real-world registry, a significant proportion of post-ACS patients were eligible for semaglutide according to the SELECT trial criteria. Future studies are needed to evaluate the potential implications of semaglutide for secondary prevention.