Background: To evaluate the association between anti-inflammatory therapies and the incidence of cardiovascular events in patients with established cardiovascular disease (CVD) or high cardiovascular risks.

Methods: Literature retrieval was conducted in Pubmed, Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Clinicaltrial.gov website from the inception to July 2022. Randomized controlled trials compared anti-inflammatory therapies with placebo in patients with established CVD or high cardiovascular risks were included. The results of the meta-analysis were computed as the odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI).

Results: Compared with placebo, anti-inflammatory therapies were associated with decreased incidence of myocardial infarction (MI) (OR=0.93, 95%CI, 0.87 to 0.98), which was mainly driven by therapies targeting central IL-6 signaling pathway (OR=0.84, 95%CI, 0.76 to 0.94). IL-1 inhibitors treatment was associated with reduced risks of heart failure (OR=0.32, 95%CI, 0.14 to 0.76) while lower incidence of stroke was observed in patients with colchicine treatment (OR=0.46, 95%CI, 0.28 to 0.77). MI events were less frequent in patients over 65 years old (OR=0.90, 95%CI, 0.82 to 0.98) or with follow-up duration over 1 year (OR=0.90, 95%CI, 0.84 to 0.96)when comparing anti-inflammatory therapies with placebo.

Conclusion: Anti-inflammatory therapies, especially those targeting central IL-6 signaling pathway may serve as promising treating strategies to ameliorate the risk of MI. Meanwhile, IL-1 inhibitor and colchicine were associated with decreased risks of heart failure and stroke respectively. MI risk reductions by anti-inflammatory therapies seem to be more prominent in patients who were elderly and with long follow-up duration.

Disclosure

C.Lin: None. Z.Li: None. X.Cai: None. L.Ji: Other Relationship; Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, Merck & Co., Inc., Bayer Inc., Sanofi-Aventis U.S., Roche Pharmaceuticals, MSD Life Science Foundation, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim Inc., Abbott, Metronics.

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (81970698, 81970708); Beijing Natural Science Foundation (7202216)

Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered. More information is available at http://www.diabetesjournals.org/content/license.