Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir compared with other antiviral drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

At present, there are some differences in the research results of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir compared with other antiviral drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir compared with other antiviral drugs and the impact of different antiviral drugs on the short- and long-term effects of COVID-19. PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials), Web of Science, Google Scholar, and MedRxiv were searched to identify relevant studies from inception to March 30, 2023. We conducted a meta-analysis to estimate the effects of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir compared with other antiviral drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 patients and safety outcomes. The RoB1 and ROBINS-I were used to assess the bias risk of the included studies. Revman 5.4 software was used for meta-analysis (PROSPERO Code No: CRD42023397816). Twelve studies were included, including 30 588 COVID-19 patients, of whom 13 402 received nirmatrelvir-ritonavir. The meta-analysis results showed that the nirmatrelvir-ritonavir group had a lower proportion of patients than the control group in terms of long-term mortality (odds ratio [OR] = 0.29, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.13-0.66), hospitalization (OR = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.37-0.53, short term; OR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.36-0.77, long term), and disease progression (OR = 0.56, 95% CI: 0.38-0.83, short term; OR = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.48-0.74, long term), and nirmatrelvir ritonavir showed little difference in safety compared to the control group. Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir can reduce the mortality and hospitalization of COVID-19 patients compared with other antiviral drugs. Further large-scale studies remain to validate these findings.