On June 29, 2023, the American Society of Anesthesiologists released consensus-based guidance recommending people who use GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs stop using them before surgery. Adults receiving daily GLP-1s were advised to stop the day of surgery, and those using a weekly GLP-1 were asked to stop therapy 7 days before surgery. However, David C. Klonoff, MD, FACP, FRCP (Edin), Fellow AIMBE, medical director of the Dorothy L. and James E. Frank Diabetes Research Institute of Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, noted that the guidance was based only on case reports and expert opinion. Klonoff and colleagues sought to conduct a retrospective cohort study to better assess surgical complication risks associated with diabetes medications.

“We know that when someone is taken off of diabetes medicine for surgery, they tend to have high blood sugar, and high blood sugar is associated with complications,” Klonoff told Healio. “Even as the anesthesiologists were embracing what they believed would be fewer perioperative and postoperative complications, they were also selecting a pathway that would lead to higher blood glucose levels at the time of surgery… Continue reading.