Patients prescribed glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, including Ozepmic and Wegovy, have a significantly higher postoperative infection rate following ankle-fusion procedures, according to a Sept. 20 Helio report, based on a study presented at the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society's annual meeting.
Michael Levidy, MD, a researcher at Hershey, Pa.-based Penn State Health, led the study using a database with CPT and ICD codes to identify patients with Type 2 diabetes who underwent tibiotalar fusion, subtalar fusion or triple arthrodesis between 2005 and 2024.
Researchers put patients into two propensity-matched cohorts of 708 patients each, depending on whether they were prescribed GLP-1s within a year prior to surgery.
Outcome measures included one-year postoperative infection rates and pseudoarthrosis rates.
The study found that patients who underwent tibiotalar fusions had a decrease in one-year postoperative pseudoarthrosis rates, while postoperative infection rates increased at one year in patients who underwent either tibiotalar fusions or tarsal fusions.
Patients treated with GLP-1 agonists had a significantly higher postoperative infection rate of 9% versus 5.6% in the patients not taking GLP-1 agonists.