Therapeutic Effects of Medication Use on Intermittent Claudication: A Network Meta-analysis

To systematically evaluate the therapeutic effects of commonly used drugs for the treatment of intermittent claudication in patients with peripheral arterial diseases.

We systematically searched bibliographic databases for randomized clinical trials published between 2000 and 2020, through the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang Data, PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane library. Included studies focused on therapeutic effects of beraprost, clopidogrel, aspirin, sarpogrelate and cilostazol on treating intermittent claudication. The outcome measures were maximum walking distance, pain-free walking distance, ankle-brachial index, and severe adverse events. The quality of included trials was evaluated by using the bias risk assessment tool recommended by the Cochrane, after extracting data from the literatures. Stata was used to conduct the network meta-analysis.

There were 27 randomized control trials included in the study, covering in total 9491 patients. The network meta-analysis results showed that for maximum walking distance, better therapeutic effect was noted in using beraprost, sarpogrelate, and cilostazol. Beraprost, beraprost combined with aspirin, and sarpogrelate were better in improving pain-free walking distance than other drugs. For the ankle-brachial index, cilostazol combined with clopidogrel, sarpogrelate, and beraprost had better therapeutic effects than others. The use of sarpogrelate, beraprost, and aspirin was associated with a lower ratio of severe adverse events than the use of cilostazol and placebo.

Among the commonly used drugs for the treatment of intermittent claudication, beraprost and sarpogrelate may have better efficacy in improving the walking distance and ankle-brachial index, with a beneficial effect on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular comorbidities.