Effects of PCSK9 Inhibitors on Glucose Metabolism in Hyperlipidaemic Patients: A Meta-Analysis

This review assessed the impacts of PCSK9 inhibitors on glucose metabolism in patients with dyslipidaemia. A comprehensive search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov to find randomised controlled studies investigating the indicators of glucose metabolism. All RCTs comparing PCSK9 inhibitors with other lipid-lowering drugs or placebo from January 2018 to December 2023 were included. In total, 12 randomised controlled trials were included, and the authors used a fixed-effects model to evaluate the potential impacts of PCSK9 inhibitors on glucose metabolism. Compared with the control group, FPG (MD = 0.08, 95% CI -0.07~0.24) and HbAlc (SMD = 0.02, 95% CI -0.09~0.12) slightly increased in patients treated with PCSK9 inhibitors, with no statistical significance. The PCSK9 inhibitor group also did not exhibit a statistically significant difference in risk between deteriorating pre-existing diabetes (RR = 0.92, 95% CI 0.84-1.01) and developing new-onset diabetes (RR = 0.95, 95% CI 0.86-1.05) from the control group. The results were not affected by the type of PCSK9 inhibitors or treatment duration. Key Words: PCSK9 inhibitors, Glucose metabolism, Diabetes mellitus.