RETRACTED ARTICLE: New insight of the efficacy trimetazidine in patients with peripheral arterial disease: a meta-analysis

TL;DR

This study finds that trimetazidine improves walking distance in peripheral artery disease patients but does not significantly affect ankle-brachial index.

Contribution

The paper provides new evidence on trimetazidine's efficacy in PAD through a meta-analysis of observational studies.

Findings

Trimetazidine significantly improves maximum walking distance in PAD patients.

There is no significant effect of trimetazidine on ankle-brachial index.

The study included three observational studies with 378 participants.

Abstract

This review aims to examine the impact of trimetazidine on skeletal muscle function in patients suffering from peripheral artery disease (PAD).

We searched for studies, both experimental and observational research, concerning the comparison of trimetazidine administration to placebo/standard of care in patients with PAD in PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane. Meta-analyses of the included studies were performed using Review Manager v5.4. Clinical parameters [ankle-brachial index (ABI) and maximum walking distance (MWD)] were analyzed.

Three observational studies involving 378 participants with PAD satisfied predefined criteria. There was no substantial difference between the examined groups’ on ABI (pre- and post-intervention) (MD = − 0.06 [− 0.19 to 0.07], p = 0.38, I2 = 90%). Meanwhile, MWD improvement was significantly higher (MD = 14.15 [6.05–22.25], p = 0.0006, I2 = 37%) in trimetazidine group than in the control group.

Current evidence from our meta-analysis suggests the beneficial role of trimetazidine's anti-ischemic effect in PAD patients by improving MWD, while it has an insignificant influence on ABI.