Evidence map›Paper›PMID 14970855›Full record

Trial reportBritish journal of cancer2004

Is treatment with interferon-alpha effective in all patients with metastatic renal carcinoma? A new approach to the investigation of interactions.

P Royston, W Sauerbrei, A Ritchie

Open access · hybridAbstract readClinical TrialRandomized Controlled Trial
In one paragraph

Trial report in British journal of cancer, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
2.4field-weighted citation impact, top 11% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Genomics of renal cell cancer-- does it provide breakthrough?Pathology oncology research : POR · 2006
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

P RoystonCancer Division, MRC Clinical Trials Unit, 222 Euston Road, London NW1 2DA, UK. pr@ctu.mrc.ac.uk
W Sauerbrei
A Ritchie
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital · GBMRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The first analysis of the MRC RE01 trial in metastatic renal carcinoma identified a 28% reduction in the hazard of death for patients treated with interferon-alpha compared with medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). No subgroup was identified in which treatment with interferon-alpha was more or less effective than MPA. We used a new approach based on fractional polynomials to investigate the updated data from this trial for the possible interaction of treatment with prognostic factors. In the spirit of hypothesis generation, we considered 10 possible prognostic variables, of which white cell count (WCC) was found to influence the effectiveness of interferon treatment. In patients treated with MPA, there was no prognostic effect of WCC, whereas, in patients treated with interferon, the risk of dying increased significantly with WCC level. We defined subgroups of patients based on WCC levels and estimated a hazard ratio of 0.53 in favour of interferon in patients with WCC <6.5 x 10(9), whereas for patients with WCC >10 x 10(9) the risk appears to be similar between the treatment groups, or even slightly raised in the interferon group. Since our results are derived from flexible statistical models, they may be interpreted as a new hypothesis and require validation in independent data.

Indexed as

Models, StatisticalProportional Hazards ModelsAdultAgedAntineoplastic AgentsAntineoplastic Agents, HormonalCarcinoma, Renal CellFemaleHumansInjections, SubcutaneousInterferon-alphaKidney NeoplasmsLeukocyte CountMaleMedroxyprogesterone AcetateMiddle AgedAntineoplastic AgentsAntineoplastic Agents, HormonalInterferon-alphaMedroxyprogesterone Acetate

Identifiers

PMID14970855
PMCPMC2410187
OpenAlexW1997296315

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.