Two years after patients with chronic kidney disease completed a randomized trial of the type 2 diabetes medicine empagliflozin, some of the drug’s protective effect on the kidneys and the heart were still evident, researchers reported at the Kidney Week meeting.

But the benefits waned over time, indicating that long-term treatment is needed to maximize the benefits of empagliflozin and other diabetes drugs in the class known as SGLT2 inhibitors on kidneys and the heart, the researchers wrote in a report of the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients with kidney disease could enroll in the trial even if they did not have diabetes. The initial report, published in 2022, showed the drug, known chemically as empagliflozin, substantially slowed patients’ kidney disease progression and reduced their risk for cardiovascular events, compared to a placebo.

Of the 6,609 patients in the original two-year trial, 4,891 enrolled in a two-year-long follow-up study. About 43% who had been randomly assigned to receive empagliflozin continued to take it, and about 40% of those who had been in the placebo group also began to take the daily pill.

During the combined active- and post-trial periods, kidney disease progression or a cardiovascular event occurred in 26.2% of the empagliflozin group and in 30.3% in the placebo group.

During the post-trial period only, the odds of one of those outcomes was 13% lower in the Jardiance group, the researchers said.

“In relative terms, the carryover effect... was less than the effect of receiving empagliflozin during the active-trial period and appeared to last for up to 12 months, with most additional benefit seen in the first 6 months after the active trial ended,” the researchers said.