To evaluate the efficacy and safety of
colchicine for
secondary prevention of
coronary heart disease (CHD), relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were identified by searching several databases from the creation date to August 31, 2020 and were reviewed. Eight eligible trials of
colchicine therapy involving a total of 11, 463 patients were included (5, 776 subjects received
colchicine, while 5, 687 subjects were in the respective control arms), and the outcome was reported as risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI), as the relative measure of association. Overall, the incidences of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) (RR 0.70; 95% CI 0.61-0.80),
myocardial infarction (MI) (RR 0.77; 95% CI 0.64-0.94), emergency readmission due to CHD (RR 0.70; 95% CI 0.58-0.86), and
ischemic stroke (RR 0.49; 95% CI 0.30-0.79) were lower in the
colchicine group than in the placebo arm. We did not find a significant reduction in the incidence of all-cause mortality (RR 1.03; 95% CI 0.80-1.32). Although the incidence of
diarrhea in the
colchicine treatment group was higher than that in the placebo arms (RR 2.53; 95% CI 1.17, 5.48), the symptoms disappeared rapidly after
drug withdrawal, and no serious adverse reactions occurred. In summary,
colchicine is an accessible, safe, and effective
drug that could be successfully utilized for the
secondary prevention of CHD. The tolerability and benefits should be confirmed in in-depth clinical trials.