Meta-analysis of the benefit of sitagliptin treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes complicated with incipient nephropathy

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the evidence of the clinical efficacy and safety of sitagliptin in diabetic patients with incipient nephropathy. PubMed, Ovid, Cochrane library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang databases were searched in September 2017 to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of sitagliptin in diabetic patients with incipient nephropathy. Study selection, data extraction and study quality assessment were performed independently by two investigators, while disagreements were resolved by a third reviewer. The treatment effect was estimated by calculating the mean difference (MD) or standard mean difference (SMD). Heterogeneity was assessed with the χ and I tests. Additionally, risk of bias graphs and summaries were used to assess the quality of the included trials. Thirteen RCTs were included in this review; their results suggested that sitagliptin has obvious advantages in lowering the 24-hour urinary albumin excretion [MD, -25.71; 95% confidence interval (CI), -30.75 to -20.66; P