Trial reportClinical rheumatology2025
Identifying clinically relevant subgroups of patients with knee pain flares for ibuprofen treatment: a secondary analysis.
Trial report in Clinical rheumatology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveWe aimed to evaluate whether subgroups with more severe inflammatory symptoms during a knee pain flare benefited more from a high dose ibuprofen treatment than subgroups with less severe inflammatory symptoms.
methodsThis secondary analysis included adults with ≥ 1 flares of knee pain in the last year, who experienced a new episode within 24 h and randomized into two treatment groups of daily ibuprofen 1200 mg or 2400 mg for 5 days. A multilevel regression analysis was used to assess interaction effects between intervention groups and pre-defined subgroups, based on osteoarthritis related symptoms (severity of morning stiffness, swelling, and pain). The primary outcome was the difference in treatment effect between subgroups on pain severity (0-10 on the numeric rating scale (NRS)) after 5 days. Differences in treatment effect between subgroups after 3 days (NRS) and 5 days (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis (WOMAC) scale) were secondary outcomes.
resultsParticipants (N = 308) had a mean age of 52.4 ± 12.9 (SD) years with 41% female subjects. No significant interaction was found between the pre-defined subgroups and intervention groups on pain severity after day 5 (all p-values ≥ 0.28) or on the secondary outcomes (all p-values ≥ 0.38). Given the potential lack of power, the absolute and adjusted mean differences between treatment arms were compared for each subgroup; none of the differences reached clinical significance.
conclusionBetween subgroups with more and less severe inflammatory symptoms during knee pain flares, no significant nor clinical benefit was found from a higher dose of ibuprofen compared to a lower dose. Keypoints • Despite the overall superiority of the higher dose, patients with severe inflammatory knee symptoms do not benefit more from an anti-inflammatory dose of ibuprofen than patients with less severe symptoms. • A higher dose of ibuprofen is not indicated for patients with severe inflammatory knee symptoms. • Given the heterogeneity among patients with knee osteoarthritis, potential subgroups should be explored in future research.
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.