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Are excellent systematic reviews of clinical trials useful for patient care?

Nature Clinical Practice Rheumatology volume 4, pages 294–295 (2008)Cite this article

Donahue and colleagues have reported a methodologically excellent systematic review of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and biologic agents for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).1 The authors' conclusion that the efficacy of sulfasalazine, leflunomide, and methotrexate are equivalent to one another and to biologic agents, while correct regarding trials, may be inaccurate regarding clinical care. Furthermore, the report does not provide informative guidance for the care of patients with RA.

It might be assumed that these problems result from errors in the application of optimal methodology. On the contrary, we suggest that they emerge from rigorous application of the methodological principles of a systematic review, which appear to be required for publication in the clinical literature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. T Pincus is Director of Outcomes Research and Y Yazici is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York, NY, USA.,

    Theodore Pincus & Yusuf Yazici

  2. T Sokka is a Consultant Rheumatologist at Jyväskylä Central Hospital, Jyväskylä, Finland.,

    Tuulikki Sokka

Authors
  1. Theodore Pincus
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  2. Yusuf Yazici
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  3. Tuulikki Sokka
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Theodore Pincus.

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Competing interests

T Pincus is a consultant for Bristol-Myers Squibb and Amgen, and has received grants/research support from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Amgen. The other authors declared no competing interests.

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Pincus, T., Yazici, Y. & Sokka, T. Are excellent systematic reviews of clinical trials useful for patient care?. Nat Rev Rheumatol 4, 294–295 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncprheum0812

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