ReviewTrials2011
Treatment success in pragmatic randomised controlled trials: a review of trials funded by the UK Health Technology Assessment programme.
Review in Trials, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Veterinary homeopathy: systematic review of medical conditions studied by randomised trials controlled by other than placebo.BMC veterinary research · 2015Pooled it
- Treatment success in cancer: industry compared to publicly sponsored randomized controlled trials.PloS one · 2013Pooled it
- Review
- Development of a rehabilitation programme for young adult cancer survivors using co-production.Research involvement and engagement · 2024Article
- Constructing Relative Effect Priors for Research Prioritization and Trial Design: A Meta-epidemiological Analysis.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2023Article
- Response to Comment on: "Attempting to Separate Placebo Effects from Exercise in Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis".Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2022Article
- Article
- Adaptive designs in clinical trials in critically ill patients: principles, advantages and pitfalls.Intensive care medicine · 2019Article
- 'Optimism bias' in contemporary national clinical trial network phase III trials: are we improving?Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology · 2018Article
- Article
- New treatments compared to established treatments in randomized trials.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2012Article
- When is it rational to participate in a clinical trial? A game theory approach incorporating trust, regret and guilt.BMC medical research methodology · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrevious research reviewed treatment success and whether the collective uncertainty principle is met in RCTs in the US National Cancer Institute portfolio. This paper classifies clinical trials funded by the UK HTA programme by results using the method applied to the US Cancer Institute trials, and compares the two portfolios.
methodsData on all completed randomised controlled trials funded by the HTA programme 1993-2008 were extracted. Each trial's primary results was classified into six categories; 1) statistically significant in favour of the new treatment, 2) statistically significant in favour of the control treatment 3) true negative, 4) truly inconclusive, 5) inconclusive in favour of new treatment or 6) inconclusive in favour of control treatment. Trials were classified by comparing the 95% confidence interval for the difference in primary outcome to the difference specified in the sample size calculation. The results were compared with Djulbegovic's analysis of NCI trials.
resultsData from 51 superiority trials were included, involving over 48,000 participants and a range of diseases and interventions. 85 primary comparisons were available because some trials had more than two randomised arms or had several primary outcomes. The new treatment had superior results (whether significant or not) in 61% of the comparisons (52/85 95% CI 49.9% to 71.6%). The results were conclusive in 46% of the comparisons (19% statistically significant in favour of the new treatment, 5% statistically significant in favour of the control and 22% true negative). The results were classified as truly inconclusive (i.e. failed to answer the question asked) for 24% of comparisons (20/85). HTA trials included fewer truly inconclusive and statistically significant results and more results rated as true negative than NCI trials.
conclusionsThe pattern of results in HTA trials is similar to that of the National Cancer Institute portfolio. Differences that existed were plausible given the differences in the types of trials -HTA trials are more pragmatic. The results indicate HTA trials are compatible with equipoise. This classification usefully summarises the results from clinical trials and enables comparisons of different portfolios of trials.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.