ReviewNature reviews. Neurology2015
The promise of futility trials in neurological diseases.
Review in Nature reviews. Neurology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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.
- An Online Weight Loss Intervention for People With Obesity and Poorly Controlled Asthma.The journal of allergy and clinical immunology. In practice · 2022Trial
- mTOR Inhibition with Sirolimus in Multiple System Atrophy: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Futility Trial and 1-Year Biomarker Longitudinal Analysis.Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society · 2022Trial
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation vs Sham Stimulation to Treat Aphasia After Stroke: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA neurology · 2018Trial
- Clinical trials in non-ambulatory people with progressive multiple sclerosis: can the nine hole peg test step up as primary outcome measure?Journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Feasibility of Simon Two-Stage Futility Trials in People with Early, Symptomatically Treated Parkinson's Disease.Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society · 2026Article
- Disease-modifying therapies for Parkinson disease: lessons from multiple sclerosis.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2024Review
- Improving the efficiency of clinical trials in multiple sclerosis.Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England) · 2023Review
- Facing the urgency of therapies for progressive MS - a Progressive MS Alliance proposal.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2021Review
- Comparative utility of disability progression measures in PPMS: Analysis of the PROMiSe data set.Neurology(R) neuroimmunology & neuroinflammation · 2017Article
- AChE Inhibition-based Multi-target-directed Ligands, a Novel Pharmacological Approach for the Symptomatic and Disease-modifying Therapy of Alzheimer's Disease.Current neuropharmacology · 2016Review
- The futility study--Progress over the last decade.Contemporary clinical trials · 2015Article
- Biostatistical benchmarking of neuro-oncology trials.Neuro-oncology advancesReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Double-blinded randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have contributed much important evidence to guide treatment decisions in neurology. RCTs are relatively straightforward to conduct, provided that they investigate common diseases, have clearly defined outcome measures, and are of short duration. In neurology, however, many diseases are uncommon, have no consensus outcome measures, and develop over decades. Basic research into neurological diseases continues to identify candidate therapies faster than they can be tested for their clinical utility, leading to a 'translational gap'. Futility trials were initially developed in oncology to efficiently test candidate therapies in phase II trials. As single-arm unblinded studies, futility trials are relatively easy to conduct, and they generally require smaller sample sizes than RCTs. In this article, we discuss futility models, highlighting their advantages as well as challenges to their application in several neurological diseases, including Parkinson disease, stroke and multiple sclerosis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
25776824What 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.