Objectives: To investigate the safety and efficacy of once-weekly glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist semaglutide as monotherapy or add-on to other antihyperglycaemic agents (AHAs) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
Methods: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched from the inception to January 18, 2018. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing semaglutide with placebo or other AHAs in T2DM patients were included in our meta-analysis. Risk ratio (RR) and mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to evaluate the outcomes.
Results: A total of 11 studies with 9519 patients were included in our meta-analysis. The results revealed that compared with placebo or other AHAs, semaglutide had further reduced the level of haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) [MD 1.03%, 95% CI (0.85%, 1.22%), p < 0.00001], self-measured plasma glucose (SMPG) [MD 1.19 mmol/L, 95% CI (0.84 mmol/L, 1.53 mmol/L), p < 0.00001], fasting plasma glucose (FPG) [MD 1.33 mmol/L, 95% CI (0.97 mmol/L, 1.69 mmol/L), p < 0.00001] and weight [MD 3.61 kg, 95% CI (3.05 kg, 4.17 kg), p < 0.00001] and significantly increased participants who achieved HbA1c < 7.0% [RR 2.26, 95% CI (1.89, 2.70), p < 0.00001] in T2DM patients. Semaglutide had a significant increase in the incidence of adverse events (AEs) [RR 1.06, 95% CI (1.02, 1.11), p < 0.0001] and an analogous incidence in serious adverse events (SAEs) [RR 0.94, 95% CI (0.86, 1.02), p = 0.11] and hypoglycaemic events (severe or blood glucose (BG)-confirmed symptomatic) [RR 0.93, 95% CI (0.74, 1.16), p = 0.50] compared with the control group.
Conclusions: This article revealed that semaglutide had a favourable efficacy and safety in treating T2DM patients. It maybe a superior choice for T2DM patients who have obesity or a poor adherence to daily AHAs.
Keywords: Efficacy; Meta-analysis; Safety; Semaglutide; Type 2 diabetes mellitus.