Efficacy and safety of belimumab in the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus: A meta‑analysis

The present meta-analysis aimed to systematically review the efficacy and safety of belimumab (BLM) therapy for patients with active and autoantibody-positive systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) treated with standard of care (SOC). To evaluate the efficacy and safety of BLM plus SOC treatment in patients with active SLE, eligible studies were retrieved from the Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, PubMed and Embase online databases up to July, 2021. Review Manager (version 5.3) and STATA 16.0 software were used to analyze the extracted data from the included studies. A total of seven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 19 case series, with 4,235 and 2,597 patients with SLE, respectively were analyzed. In the RCTs, there were more SLE responder index (SRI-4) responders in the BLM group compared with the control group [52.8 vs. 41.6%; relative risk (RR), 1.27; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.18-1.37); P