ArticlePakistan journal of medical sciences
The safety and efficacy of biologic agents in treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus: A network meta-analysis.
Article in Pakistan journal of medical sciences. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 3 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
5 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy and Safety of Biologics for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE): A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.Clinical reviews in allergy & immunology · 2025Pooled it
- Saudi National Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Adult Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.Current rheumatology reviews · 2025Guideline
- Efficacy and safety study of targeted small-molecule drugs in the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus.Arthritis research & therapy · 2024Pooled it
- Janus kinase inhibitors in systemic lupus erythematosus: implications for tyrosine kinase 2 inhibition.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Review
- Case Report: Psychopathological Syndromes in the Course of Lupus Erythematosus and the Co-occurrence of Lupus Erythematous With Mental Disorders.Frontiers in psychiatry · 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
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivePrevious studies have shown that biologic agents out of the nine medicines might be beneficial for the treatment of SLE. The aim of this study was to evaluate the most effective medication of six biologic agents in treatment of SLE using network meta-analysis (NMA). The performance of these processes is ranked according to the results of this analysis.
methodsMultiple databases including PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library was used to identify applicable articles and collect relevant data to analyzed by using STATA (13.0) software. The papers included in this study were divided into control group (placebo) and observation group (one of the six medicines).
resultsA total of 21 eligible RCTs of biologic agents were identified, a total of 995 papers were included, and the results showed that the belimumab had the highest probability of being the most clinically efficacious intervention, with a surface under the cumulative ranking (SUCRA) curve of 75.0, was significantly superior (P < 0.05) to placebo alone. The blisibimod was the worst, with a SUCRA value of 29.4. The other biologic agents (atacicept, blisibimod, epratuzumab, rituximab, tabalumab) were insignificantly superior (P > 0.05) to placebo alone.
conclusionsBelimumab had the highest probability of being the best treatment for SLE compared with the other biologic agents (atacicept, blisibimod, epratuzumab, rituximab, tabalumab). The other biologic agents indicated an insignificant difference in efficacy for the treatment of SLE compared with placebo.
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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.