ReviewBritish journal of clinical pharmacology2014
Overview of methods for comparing the efficacies of drugs in the absence of head-to-head clinical trial data.
Review in British journal of clinical pharmacology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 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
35 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Indirect Comparison of the Efficacy of Zanubrutinib vs Ibrutinib and Acalabrutinib in Treatment-Naive Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: 6-Year Follow-Up.Advances in therapy · 2026Pooled it
- Lefamulin versus omadacycline for community acquired bacterial pneumonia: a systematic review and anchored indirect treatment comparison using moxifloxacin as the common comparator.Journal of comparative effectiveness research · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of simple analgesics for acute treatment of episodic tension-type headache in adults: a network meta-analysis.Annals of medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Indirect comparison of efficacy and safety between immune checkpoint inhibitors and antiangiogenic therapy in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer.Scientific reports · 2018Pooled it
- Mapping the characteristics of network meta-analyses on drug therapy: A systematic review.PloS one · 2018Pooled it
- The lack of head-to-head randomised trials and the consequences for patients and national health service: The case of non-small cell lung cancer.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2024Trial
- Durability of glycaemic control with dapagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor, compared with saxagliptin, a DPP4 inhibitor, in patients with inadequately controlled type 2 diabetes.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2019Trial
- Defining benchmarking in the context of safety assessment of personal care and cosmetic products using New Approach Methodologies.NAM journal · 2026Review
- Evaluating the feasibility of a network meta-analysis comparing treatment options in polycythemia vera.Journal of comparative effectiveness research · 2026Review
- Efficacy of Tuina Versus the Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) Technique in Patients With Nonspecific Chronic Neck Pain: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- An Epidemiologic Approach for Estimating Risk Reduction and Asymptotic Power on the Log-Difference Scale.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- A process to validate prognostic factors for unanchored matching-adjusted indirect comparison of single-arm trials in oncology: a proof-of-concept study.Journal of comparative effectiveness research · 2025Article
- Methods used for indirect comparisons of systemic treatments for psoriasis. A systematic review.Skin health and disease · 2023Review
- Area under the curve: Comparing the value of factor VIII replacement therapies in haemophilia A.Haemophilia : the official journal of the World Federation of Hemophilia · 2023Article
- Cross-study safety analysis of risk factors in CAR T cell clinical trials: An FDA database pilot project.Molecular therapy oncolytics · 2022Article
- The efficacy and safety of oral semaglutide for glycaemic management in adults with type 2 diabetes compared to subcutaneous semaglutide, placebo, and other GLP-1 RA comparators: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2022Review
- The Value of Indirect Comparisons of Systemic Biologics for Psoriasis: Interpretation of Efficacy Findings.Dermatology and therapy · 2022Review
- The potential long-term comparative effectiveness of larotrectinib vs standard of care for treatment of metastatic TRK fusion thyroid cancer, colorectal cancer, and soft tissue sarcoma.Journal of managed care & specialty pharmacy · 2022Article
- The use of metformin as an add-on therapy to insulin in the treatment of poorly controlled type 1 diabetes mellitus in adolescents.Metabolism open · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In most therapeutic areas, multiple drug options are increasingly becoming available, but there is often a lack of evidence from head-to-head clinical trials that allows for direct comparison of the efficacy and/or safety of one drug vs. another. This review provides an introduction to, and overview of, common methods used for comparing drugs in the absence of head-to-head clinical trial evidence. Naïve direct comparisons are in most instances inappropriate and should only be used for exploratory purposes and when no other options are possible. Adjusted indirect comparisons are currently the most commonly accepted method and use links through one or more common comparators. Mixed treatment comparisons (MTCs) use Bayesian statistical models to incorporate all available data for a drug, even data that are not relevant to the comparator drug. MTCs reduce uncertainty but have not yet been widely accepted by researchers, nor drug regulatory and reimbursement authorities. All indirect analyses are based on the same underlying assumption as meta-analyses, namely that the study populations in the trials being compared are similar.
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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.