Introduction: A meta-analysis was carried out to systematically evaluate the effects of liraglutide on waist circumference, BMI, weight, insulin resistance (IR), Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH), and Luteinizing hormone (LH) levels in obese women with polycystic ovarian syndromes (PCOS).
Evidence acquisition: Randomized and non-randomized control trials of liraglutide monotherapy and add-on therapy were searched through PUBMED, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, EBSCO, CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), the Wanfang database, and Google Scholar databases up to May 30th, 2020. Information about the impact of liraglutide on polycystic ovarian syndromes (PCOS) related to obese patients was extracted by two reviewers independently, and Revman 5.3 was used for meta-analysis.
Evidence synthesis: A total of six studies with 401 women were included in this research. Waist circumference, BMI, weight was significantly reduced by -6.28 cm (95% CI: -7.89, -4.67; P<0.00001), -2.53 kg/m2 (95% CI: -2.79, -2.27; P<0.00001) and -4.33 kg (95% CI: -6.05, -2.61; P<0.00001) after treatment with liraglutide monotherapy or add on therapy. There was a moderate declination in HOMA-IR scores following liraglutide treatment with -0.81 (95% CI: -0.97, -0.64; P<0.00001). FSH and LH show a decline in the liraglutide group with high heterogeneity (I2>95%).
Conclusions: For women with PCOS, BMI, weight, and waist circumference were significantly decreased after 12~24 weeks of treatment with liraglutide monotherapy and add-on therapy. Insulin resistance might be improved with the use of liraglutide. Nevertheless, large scale randomized control trials should be carried out to elucidate the long-term outcome in improving the insulin sensitivity of liraglutide treatment.