Acotiamide and Functional Dyspepsia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Functional dyspepsia is a common gastrointestinal disorder characterized by postprandial fullness or early satiety and epigastric burning or pain in the absence of organic disease. Acotiamide is a novel prokinetic motility drug being used in functional dyspepsia. Databases like PubMed, PubMed Central, Embase, and Scopus were searched for studies comparing the use of acotiamide and placebo for people with functional dyspepsia. Quantitative synthesis was performed using RevMan 5.4 (Cochrane, London, United Kingdom). The improvement in symptoms of functional dyspepsia after treatment was higher in people treated with acotiamide than placebo, although not statistically significant (OR, 1.48; 95% CI, 0.93 to 2.35; n = 1697; I(2) = 59%). Among the commonly reported adverse effects, namely, raised in serum prolactin (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.64 to 1.61; n = 1709; I(2) = 44%), raised in alanine transaminase (OR 1.27, 95% CI 0.70 to 2.33; n = 1709; I(2) = 0%), and raised in serum bilirubin (OR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.52 to 1.87; I(2) = 0%) did not differ between two groups. Acotiamide seems to be a promising agent in functional dyspepsia. However, further larger studies are needed to evaluate the role of acotiamide in functional dyspepsia.