ArticleTransactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene2011
Cure rate is not a valid indicator for assessing drug efficacy and impact of preventive chemotherapy interventions against schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis.
Article in Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 6 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
32 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Praziquantel efficacy, urinary and intestinal schistosomiasis reinfection - a systematic review.Pathogens and global health · 2023Pooled it
- Efficacy of recommended drugs against soil transmitted helminths: systematic review and network meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2017Pooled it
- The Schistosomiasis Clinical Trials Landscape: A Systematic Review of Antischistosomal Treatment Efficacy Studies and a Case for Sharing Individual Participant-Level Data (IPD).PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2016Pooled it
- Toward Measuring Schistosoma Response to Praziquantel Treatment with Appropriate Descriptors of Egg Excretion.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2015Pooled it
- Soil-transmitted helminth reinfection after drug treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2012Pooled it
- A comparison of the diagnostic capability of Kato-Katz and real-time PCR for the assessment of treatment efficacy of ivermectin and albendazole combination against T. trichiura infections.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2024Trial
- Long-term outcomes of ivermectin-albendazole versus albendazole alone against soil-transmitted helminths: Results from randomized controlled trials in Lao PDR and Pemba Island, Tanzania.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Trial
- A Persistent Hotspot of Schistosoma mansoni Infection in a Five-Year Randomized Trial of Praziquantel Preventative Chemotherapy Strategies.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2017Trial
- Single Versus Double Dose Praziquantel Comparison on Efficacy and Schistosoma mansoni Re-Infection in Preschool-Age Children in Uganda: A Randomized Controlled Trial.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2015Trial
- Rapid re-infection with soil-transmitted helminths after triple-dose albendazole treatment of school-aged children in Yunnan, People's Republic of China.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2013Trial
- Efficacy of praziquantel against Schistosoma mekongi and Opisthorchis viverrini: a randomized, single-blinded dose-comparison trial.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2012Trial
- Efficacy of two rounds of albendazole treatment on soil-transmitted helminths in schoolchildren, Yunnan Province, China.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Efficacy and safety of praziquantel plus artemisinin-based combinations versus praziquantel in the treatment of Kenyan children withAntimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2025Article
- Assessing the diagnostic value of qPCR forFrontiers in parasitology · 2025Article
- The pipeline for drugs for control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases: 2. Oral anti-infective drugs and drug combinations for off-label use.Parasites & vectors · 2023Review
- Assessing the efficacy of albendazole against hookworm in Vietnam using quantitative PCR and sodium nitrate flotation.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Article
- Prospective, observational study to assess the performance of CAA measurement as a diagnostic tool for the detection of Schistosoma haematobium infections in pregnant women and their child in Lambaréné, Gabon: study protocol of the freeBILy clinical trial in Gabon.BMC infectious diseases · 2020Article
- One mean to rule them all? The arithmetic mean based egg reduction rate can be misleading when estimating anthelminthic drug efficacy in clinical trials.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2020Article
- Use of quantitative PCR to assess the efficacy of albendazole against Necator americanus and Ascaris spp. in Manufahi District, Timor-Leste.Parasites & vectors · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Every year in endemic countries, several million individuals are given anthelminthic drugs in the context of preventive chemotherapy programmes for morbidity control of schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis. The capacity to evaluate accurately the efficacy of the drugs used as well as the health impact produced by treatment is of utmost importance for appropriate planning and implementation of these interventions. Cure rate is an indicator of drug efficacy that was originally developed for assessing the clinical efficacy of antibiotics on selected bacterial diseases. Over time, this indicator has also been widely applied to anthelminthic drugs and consequently used to monitor and evaluate preventive chemotherapy interventions. In the author's opinion, however, measurement of cure rate provides information of limited usefulness in the context of helminth control programmes. The present article analyses the peculiarities of helminth infections and those of the drugs used in preventive chemotherapy, explaining the reasons why the cure rate is not an adequate indicator in this specific public health context.
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.