The efficacy of Roxadustat for the treatment of anemia in dialysis dependent chronic kidney disease patients: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

• Published in: Annals of translational medicine 2021-12, Vol.9 (23), p.1714-1714
• Main Authors: Abdelazeem, Basel, Abbas, Kirellos Said, Shehata, Joseph, El-Shahat, Nahla Ahmed, Baral, Nischit, Savarapu, Pramod, Kunadi, Arvind
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Original
• ISSN: 2305-5839; 2305-5839
• DOI: 10.21037/atm-21-4357

Anemia is a common complication in chronic kidney disease (CKD) with increased morbidity and mortality. Recently published RCTs were conducted to compare the effect of the new medication roxadustat (ROX) with erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) in dialysis-dependent CKD (DD-CKD) patients. Our article aimed to meta-analyze published RCTs to investigate the efficacy and safety of ROX for anemia in DD-CKD patients and update the effect of the new studies on overall analysis with subsequent impact on management. Electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Central, and Google Scholar) were searched systematically from inception to July 2021 by using this search term (Roxadustat OR ASP1517 OR FG4592 OR "FG-4592") AND (kidney OR renal) AND (Anemia). We only included randomized control trials (RCTs) that reported the primary outcome of change in hemoglobin (Hb) level and iron utilization parameters, including ferritin, serum iron, TSAT, TIBC, transferrin, and hepcidin. Ten RCTs were finally included with 3031 patients in the ROX group and 2737 patients in the control group. ROX was associated with increase in Hb level (SMD: 0.2; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.39; P=0.03), TIBC (SMD: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.61, 0.98; P