ArticleBMC medical research methodology2012
The use of continuous data versus binary data in MTC models: a case study in rheumatoid arthritis.
Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Impact of Exercise on Intervertebral Disc Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Pooled it
- Comparative Efficacy of Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Inhibitors in Ankylosing Spondylitis: A Systematic Review and Bayesian Network Metaanalysis.The Journal of rheumatology · 2018Pooled it
- Results of a positive affect intervention for male couples: Change over time and effects on mental health.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2025Trial
- The longitudinal association between depression, anxiety symptoms and HIV outcomes, and the modifying effect of alcohol dependence among ART clients with hazardous alcohol use in Vietnam.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2021Trial
- Structural severity outweighs laboratory biomarkers in predicting short-term failure under nonoperative management for partial-thickness supraspinatus tears: a prospective cohort study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2026Article
- Efficacy of Lamotrigine in the Treatment of Unipolar and Bipolar Depression: Meta-Analysis of Acute and Maintenance Randomised Controlled Trials.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- PI-QUAL version 2 image quality categorisation and inter-reader agreement compared to version 1.European radiology · 2025Article
- Article
- The absence of reporting standards and a lack of objective, performance-based outcomes following intramedullary nailing of tibial shaft fractures: findings from a scoping review into 179 articles.European journal of trauma and emergency surgery : official publication of the European Trauma Society · 2024Article
- A flexible dose-response modeling framework based on continuous toxicity outcomes in phase I cancer clinical trials.Trials · 2023Article
- Age-varying Associations of Depressive Symptoms and Heavy Episodic Drinking Throughout Adulthood Among People with HIV and Receiving care in Cameroon Within a National "treat all" Policy.AIDS and behavior · 2023Article
- Researchers in rheumatology should avoid categorization of continuous predictor variables.BMC medical research methodology · 2023Article
- Situational uncertainty interacts with anxiety sensitivity and distress intolerance to predict anticipated worry and preparation for a hurricane.Anxiety, stress, and coping · 2023Article
- Prediction of antischistosomal small molecules using machine learning in the era of big data.Molecular diversity · 2022Review
- Acute Effects of Air Pollution and Noise from Road Traffic in a Panel of Young Healthy Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Biosimilars in rheumatology: understanding the rigor of their development.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2017Review
- Improving the power of clinical trials of rheumatoid arthritis by using data on continuous scales when analysing response rates: an application of the augmented binary method.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2016Article
- An overview of conducting systematic reviews with network meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2014Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEstimates of relative efficacy between alternative treatments are crucial for decision making in health care. When sufficient head to head evidence is not available Bayesian mixed treatment comparison models provide a powerful methodology to obtain such estimates. While models can be fit to a broad range of efficacy measures, this paper illustrates the advantages of using continuous outcome measures compared to binary outcome measures.
methodsUsing a case study in rheumatoid arthritis a Bayesian mixed treatment comparison model is fit to estimate the relative efficacy of five anti-TNF agents currently licensed in Europe. The model is fit for the continuous HAQ improvement outcome measure and a binary version thereof as well as for the binary ACR response measure and the underlying continuous effect. Results are compared regarding their power to detect differences between treatments.
resultsSixteen randomized controlled trials were included for the analysis. For both analyses, based on the HAQ improvement as well as based on the ACR response, differences between treatments detected by the binary outcome measures are subsets of the differences detected by the underlying continuous effects.
conclusionsThe information lost when transforming continuous data into a binary response measure translates into a loss of power to detect differences between treatments in mixed treatment comparison models. Binary outcome measures are therefore less sensitive to change than continuous measures. Furthermore the choice of cut-off point to construct the binary measure also impacts the relative efficacy estimates.
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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.