Efficacy and safety of incretin-based therapies in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: A protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is seriously affecting the general health due to its high prevalence and associated risk of liver-related consequences and extrahepatic chronic complications. New drugs are urgently needed for the treatment of NAFLD. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to assess the efficacy of incretin-based therapies in patients with NAFLD. METHODS: We will search 4 databases for relative studies: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science databases and identified all reports of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published from inception to July 2020. Two authors will independently scan the searched articles, extract the data from included articles, and assess the risk of bias by Cochrane tool of risk of bias. Disagreements will be resolved by discussion among authors. All analysis will be performed based on the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Fixed-effects model or random-effects model will be used to calculate pooled estimates of weighted mean difference (WMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) or odds ratio (OR) with 95% CIs. RESULTS: This systematic review aims to examine the effect of incretin-based therapies on liver histology, liver fat content, liver enzymes, and adverse events in patients with NAFLD. CONCLUSIONS: These findings will provide guidance to clinicians and patients on the use of incretin-based therapies for NAFLD.