(1) Background: Recently more and more Chinese clinical studies have been conducted to compare the efficacy and safety of roxadustat with erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) in hemodialysis (HD) patients. We aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of roxadustat in Chinese HD patients. (2) Methods: The PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, WanFang, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), SinoMed, and VIP databases were searched from their inception to July 2022 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the efficacy and safety of roxadustat to those of ESAs in treating anemia in Chinese HD patients. (3) Results: Twenty-one RCTs involving 1408 patients were enrolled. Our study showed that the improvement of hemoglobin (Hb) levels and iron metabolism were significantly higher in the roxadustat group than in the ESA group. Additionally, the total adverse events risk was significantly lower in the roxadustat group. (4) Conclusions: In this meta-analysis, we found that roxadustat was more effective and safer than ESAs in treating anemia in Chinese HD patients.
Keywords: anemia; hemodialysis; meta-analysis; roxadustat; systematic review.