Stefanos Zafeiropoulos, Areti Pagiantza, Ioannis Doundoulakis, Nikolaos Stalikas, Ioannis Farmakis, Athanasios Samaras, Christina Antza and George Giannakoulas* Pages 1068 - 1079 ( 12 )
Background: Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) have emerged as a new antihyperglycemic class with the demonstrated advantage of reducing major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) among individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2DM), atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, or high cardiovascular risk.
Objective: Τo summarize the evidence of systematic reviews (SRs) that assess MACE (cardiovascular mortality, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and stroke) and hospitalizations for heart failure in GLP-1RAs-treated patients and to evaluate possible overlap in pertinent SRs.
Methods: We performed a comprehensive search via MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and PROSPERO databases up to February 23, 2020, for SRs examining cardiovascular outcomes of GLP-1RAs in T2DM patients. Three independent authors extracted data and assessed the methodological quality of the included SRs using the ROBIS tool.
Results: We found 37 SRs – published between 2009 and 2020 in English – of which 35 collected data only from randomized clinical trials while two from observational studies as well. The methodological quality of the 37 SRs ranged from low to high, while only 3 have evaluated the overall quality of evidence outcome using the Grading of Recommendations Assessments, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. All the included SRs showed cardiovascular safety of GLP-1RAs while the latest ones demonstrated a reduction in composite MACE endpoint as well as its every individual component and heart failure hospitalizations.
Conclusion: In the first overview of SRs about cardiovascular outcomes of GLP-1RAs, they proved favorable effects on reducing cardiovascular events in T2DM patients. There are, however, many overlapping reviews based on relatively few cardiovascular outcomes trials.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular outcomes, type 2 diabetes (T2DM), antihyperglycemic class, systematic reviews.
1st Department of Cardiology, AHEPA University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 1st Department of Cardiology, AHEPA University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 1st Department of Cardiology, AHEPA University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 1st Department of Cardiology, AHEPA University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 1st Department of Cardiology, AHEPA University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 1st Department of Cardiology, AHEPA University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 3rd Department of Internal Medicine, Papageorgiou General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 1st Department of Cardiology, AHEPA University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki