Eligibility Criteria

This meta-analysis, conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines, included all studies reporting adverse events of pancreatic cancer with use of incretin-based therapy GLP-1RAs and DPP-IV inhibitors compared with placebo or other non-incretin anti-diabetic drugs in patients with T2DM. Studies fulfilling the following criteria were included: (i) RCTs; (ii) studies must include an intervention group with T2DM patients treated by incretin-based therapy (studies enrolling healthy patients, on-diabetic cases, or patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus were excluded); (iii) patients with T2DM must have been studied for at least 24 weeks of treatment period (trials with shorter terms will not be able to demonstrate this association between incretin treatment and pancreatic cancer as it is thought to be a long-term adverse event); (iv) treatment for a minimum of 12 weeks with DPP-IV inhibitors in monotherapy or combination therapy or GLP-1 RA versus placebo or any anti-diabetic drug (oral hypoglycemic agent or insulin); (v) studies that yielded relevant information on reporting adverse events, regardless of whether the incidence of pancreatic cancer was the principal outcome variable or not.