randomized controlled trials

March 13, 2020: Impact of Regulatory Guidance on Evaluating Cardiovascular Risk of New Glucose-Lowering Therapies to Treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus–Lessons Learned and Future Directions (Abhinav Sharma, MD, PhD; Christopher Granger, MD)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speakers

Abhinav Sharma, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
McGill University

Christopher B. Granger, MD, FAHA, FACC
Professor of Medicine
Director, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit
Duke University Medical Center

Topic

Impact of Regulatory Guidance on Evaluating Cardiovascular Risk of New Glucose-Lowering Therapies to Treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus–Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Keywords

Type 2 diabetes; Regulatory; Cardiovascular risk; Food and Drug Administration; FDA; Patient outcomes; Anti-hyperglycemic medications

Key Points

  • The hallmark of type 2 diabetes mellitus is insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency. Ninety percent of all cases of diabetes are type 2 diabetes, and the diagnosis can occur at any age.
  • While people with type 2 diabetes can often initially manage their condition through exercise and diet, over time most people will require oral drugs or insulin.
  • Strategies are needed reduce the burden of cardiovascular outcomes in patients with diabetes.
  • In 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued guidelines for sponsors to demonstrate that their anti-hyperglycemic medications do not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. In March 2020, the FDA updated the guidance in a draft for comment: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Evaluating the Safety of New Drugs for Improving Glycemic Control Guidance for Industry.

Discussion Themes

Is the cardiovascular protection of some anti-hyperglycemic drugs independent of the effect on blood glucose?

How can regulators, industry, academia, payers, and patient advocacy groups assure that evidence generation to improve care is incentivized without undue regulatory burdens?

Should post-marketing studies include comparative effectiveness pragmatic trials in order to improve translation into clinical practice?

Read more on this topic from Sharma and colleagues in a recent publication in Circulation.

Tags
#pctGR, @Collaboratory1

January 31, 2020: Living Textbook Grand Rounds Series Part 1: Pragmatic Clinical Trials: How Do I Start? (Lesley H. Curtis, PhD, Greg Simon, MD, MPH)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speakers

Greg Simon, MD, MPH
Senior Investigator
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute

Lesley H. Curtis, PhD
Chair and Professor
Department of Population Health Sciences
Duke University School of Medicine
Interim Executive Director, Duke Clinical Research Institute

Topic

Pragmatic Clinical Trials: How Do I Start?

Keywords

Pragmatic clinical trials; PRECIS-2; Real-world evidence; Health systems research; Stakeholders; Clinical workflow; Study team

Key Points

  • Embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs) are large, efficient studies conducted in the real world that provide evidence for adoption of an intervention into clinical practice.
  • ePCTs are conducted in partnership with healthcare systems, use streamlined procedures and existing infrastructure, and answer important medical questions. However, high relevance to real-world decision-making can sometimes come at the expense of trial efficiency.
  • The PRECIS-2 scores are not absolute virtues; rather, the tool helps researchers determine if their trial is fit for purpose based on their study question.
  • For greater generalizability, ePCTs should be conducted in a diverse range of patients, and study results should be reported transparently.

Discussion Themes

How might we support health systems that serve more diverse populations to participate in a pragmatic clinical trial?

What concerns might be voiced by health system leaders regarding potential reputational risk of a PCT, and perhaps downstream issues about the results publication?

The question “Can everyone do this study?” is different from “Can everyone believe the research results?”

To see upcoming topics in the Living Textbook Grand Rounds series, download the flyer and share with your colleagues and institution. To learn more about the fundamentals of designing and launching a successful ePCT visit the Living Textbook.

January 24, 2020: Cardiovascular Trials Over 2 Decades: Progress on Pragmatism? (Justin A. Ezekowitz, MBBCh, MSc)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speaker

Justin A. Ezekowitz, MBBCh, MSc
Professor, Department of Medicine
Co-Director, Canadian VIGOUR Centre
Director, Cardiovascular Research, University of Alberta
Cardiologist, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute

Topic

Cardiovascular Trials Over 2 Decades: Progress on Pragmatism?

Keywords

Pragmatic clinical trials; PRECIS-2; Cardiovascular trials; Enrollment of women

Key Points

  • Pragmatic clinical trials are “designed for the primary purpose of informing decision-makers regarding the comparative balance of benefits, burdens and risks of a biomedical or behavioral health intervention at the individual or population level” (Califf & Sugarman, 2015).
  • This study examined how pragmatic or explanatory cardiovascular (CV) randomized controlled trials are; whether the level of pragmatism in CV trials has changed over 2 decades; and whether the proportion of women enrolled in CV trials has changed over 2 decades.
  • No clinical trial is completely explanatory or pragmatic. In this study, trials that scored higher on pragmatism (using the PRECIS-2 tool) had more sites, a larger sample size, longer follow up, and mortality as a primary endpoint.

Discussion Themes

Randomized controlled trials that were published in general medicine journals scored higher in pragmatism than those published in CV journals. Pragmatism has increased over time in CV trials.

While women account for ~45% of the burden of CV diseases, they are underrepresented in CV randomized controlled trials, with less than one-third of trial participants. There was no difference between pragmatic trials and other trials in terms of women’s enrollment.

Initiatives that focus on patient, clinician, and trial design factors are needed to address the gender gap in trial enrollment.

Read more about the PRECIS-2 tool in the Living Textbook, and Dr. Ezekowitz’s research in Trends in the Explanatory or Pragmatic Nature of Cardiovascular Clinical Trials Over 2 Decades (JAMA Cardiology, 2019).

Tags
#pctGR, @Collaboratory1

January 17, 2020: Assessment of the Human Systemic Absorption of Sunscreen Active Ingredients: FDA-Sponsored Randomized Clinical Trial (Murali Matta, MPharm, PhD)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speaker

Murali Matta, MPharm, PhD
Bioanalytical Lead
Division of Applied Regulatory Science
Office of Clinical Pharmacology
Food and Drug Administration

Topic

Assessment of the Human Systemic Absorption of Sunscreen Active Ingredients: FDA-Sponsored Randomized Clinical Trial

Keywords

FDA; Sunscreen; Randomized controlled trial; Regulatory; Data analysis

Key Points

  • The active ingredients in nonprescription sunscreen products are organic chemicals, some of which have been shown to be absorbed through human skin with detectable levels in the blood or urine.
  • It is important that randomized clinical trials be conducted to better understand the clinical significance of systemic exposure to sunscreen products.
  • In this trial, all active ingredients in all tested products exhibited systemic exposures above the threshold for potentially waiving some nonclinical toxicology studies for sunscreens.

Discussion Themes

Do the observed differences in the sunscreen concentration depend on the application type; for example, spray versus lotion versus cream?

While additional toxicology data are needed, the results of this study do not indicate that individuals should refrain from the use of sunscreen.

Is there opportunity for collaboration with other organizations including private physician-scientists to conduct larger population studies with consumers?

Read more about Dr. Matta’s study at Shedding New Light on Sunscreen Absorption and in a recent JAMA publication.

Tags
#pctGR, @Collaboratory1, @US_FDA

December 13, 2019: EMBED Update: Challenges and Solutions (Edward Melnick, MD, Gail D’Onofrio, MD)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speakers

Edward R. Melnick, MD, MHS
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Program Director, Yale-VA Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program
Principal Investigator, EMBED Trial

Gail D’Onofrio, MD
Professor & Chair
Department of Emergency Medicine
Yale School of Medicine

Topic

EMBED Update: Challenges and Solutions

Keywords

Embedded clinical research; Buprenorphine; EMBED; Opioid use disorder; Emergency department; Electronic health record; Clinical decision support tool; User-centered design; Clinical informatics

Key Points

  • Evidence shows that buprenorphine (BUP) treatment for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) can safely and effectively be initiated from the emergency department (ED). As yet, BUP is rarely initiated as a part of routine ED care. Clinical decision support could accelerate adoption of ED-initiated BUP into routine emergency care.
  • The EMBED pragmatic trial is evaluating the effectiveness of a user-friendly, web-based clinical decision support tool to enable ED-initiated buprenorphine treatment for OUD. The goal is to optimize the tool’s usability, EHR integration, automation of EHR workflow, and scalability across a variety of healthcare systems.
  • EMBED is being conducted in 20 EDs across 5 healthcare systems.

Discussion Themes

The study team developed a computable phenotype to identify ED patients with OUD. Validation was conducted through physician chart review.

EMBED clinical decision support is a flexible tool that supports clinicians with varied levels of experience with the intervention by providing one-click options for direct activation of care pathways and user-activated support for critical decision points.

Newer versions of EHR systems have integrated pathways to allow for more automation of clinical decision support.

Read more about the challenges of the EMBED pragmatic trial and visit the EMBED web page.

Tags
#pctGR, @Collaboratory1

October 11, 2019: Objecting to Experiments that Compare Two Unobjectionable Policies or Treatments: Implications for Comparative Effectiveness and Other Pragmatic Clinical Trials (Michelle Meyer, PhD, JD)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speaker

Michelle N. Meyer, PhD, JD
Assistant Professor & Associate Director, Research Ethics
Center for Translational Bioethics & Health Care Policy
Faculty Co-Director, Behavioral Insights Team
Steele Institute for Health Innovation, Geisinger

Topic

Objecting to Experiments that Compare Two Unobjectionable Policies or Treatments: Implications for Comparative Effectiveness and Other Pragmatic Clinical Trials

Keywords

A vs B trials; Comparative effectiveness research; Clinical equipoise; Randomization; Learning health system

Key Points

  • Healthcare delivery systems often have an ethical obligation to experiment in order to determine the effects of their policies and treatments on stakeholders. A/B experiments conducted within health systems are intended to increase quality and safety, decrease waste or lower costs, and reduce inequity and injustice.
  • The “A/B effect” is the approval of untested policies or treatments (A or B) being universally implemented but disapproval of randomized experiments (A/B tests) to determine which of those policies or treatments is superior.
  • Experimentation aversion may be an important barrier to evidence-based practice.

Discussion Themes

Do you think the objection to random assignment is related to a sense that it is not “random?”

A potential solution to the “A/B effect” is to let patients be partners in improving healthcare by explaining that “we don’t know if A or B is better. Would you be willing to help us find out?”

Read Dr. Meyer and colleagues’ open access article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 2019): Objecting to experiments that compare two unobjectionable policies or treatments.

Tags
#pctGR, @Collaboratory1

September 6, 2019: Transforming Medical Evidence Generation with Technology-Enabled Trials (Matthew T. Roe, MD MHS)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speaker

Matthew T. Roe, MD, MHS
Senior Investigator, Professor of Medicine
Duke Clinical Research Institute

Topic

Transforming Medical Evidence Generation with Technology-Enabled Trials

Keywords

Mobile clinical trials; Real-world evidence; Real-world data; Study design; Regulatory oversight; Digital health; Mobile health applications; Biosensors; Electronic health records

Key Points

  • Digital health applications and electronic health records provide tremendous opportunities for improving trial efficiencies, broadening patient participation, and reducing cost.
  • Novel approaches that can help reduce data collection burden for study sites include importing EHR data directly into the trial database, collecting patient-reported outcomes through web-based portals, and incorporating digital health data from wearables and biosensors.
  • To realize the potential of new technology, cross-sectional partnerships are needed among research participants, researchers, biopharma device industries, professional medical associations, insurers, FDA, clinicians, health IT, contract research organizations, and health systems.

Discussion Themes

How many potential patients might we lose if having a smart phone is an inclusion criterion for a clinical study?

How can we ensure that the clinical trial infrastructure is inclusive of minority populations, especially those in rural settings?

What is the role of physicians in reaching a large number of participants who are not near an academic research center?

Ultimately, in clinical trials, the data are what matter and what decisions are based on. We need to understand data quality and standards for the data to be accepted.

Read more about digital health at FDA’s Digital Health website.

Tags

#pctGR, @Collaboratory1, @MTRHeart

August 5, 2019: New Section of Living Textbook Addresses Missing Data in Intention-to-Treat Analyses

Posted on by Damon Seils

A new section of the NIH Collaboratory’s Living Textbook of Pragmatic Clinical Trials discusses challenges associated with missing data that result from noncompliance, crossover, and dropout.

Many randomized controlled trials use an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis to measure the real-world effects of the intervention. The newly published section, Missing Data and Intention-to-Treat Analyses, considers the population-level causal effects in these trials when there is noncompliance or missing outcome data.

“One rationale for the ITT approach is that it evaluates the real-world effects of the intervention. However, a common misconception is that the ITT analysis will be unbiased regardless of crossover or missing data.”

The new section also introduces a white paper from the NIH Collaboratory’s Biostatistics and Study Design Core, “Analyses of Randomized Controlled Trials in the Presence of Noncompliance and Study Dropout.” This working document offers analysts a more detailed discussion of treatment effects in ITT analyses, including a case example and recommended strategies for estimating and reporting both ITT effects and average causal effects.

The Biostatistics and Study Design Core works with the NIH Collaboratory Trial teams to create guidance and technical documents regarding study design and biostatistical issues relevant to pragmatic clinical trials.

August 2, 2019: AI and the Future of Psychiatry (Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speaker

Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Duke School of Medicine

Topic

AI and the Future of Psychiatry

Keywords

Artificial intelligence; Machine learning; Psychiatry; Ethical adoption of technologies; Mental health; Wearables; Mobile health

Key Points

  • There is growing evidence from randomized controlled trials of the efficacy of using digital tools in mental health diagnosis and treatment.
  • Could artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies be used to:
    • Reduce the stigma associated with mental health treatment?
    • Predict the risk for future suicide?
    • Detect Alzheimer’s years before diagnosis?
  • Categories of AI applications include low-risk apps that measure but do not diagnose, and apps used in diagnosis or treatment that must meet the same high standards of evidence as medications.
  • Clinicians still struggle with how to integrate patient data from wearable devices. AI technology might help if it could be used to synthesize the data into a risk profile for an individual.

Discussion Themes

What are the roles of stress, exercise, and sleep in mental health, and can autonomic data from wearables help explain the variance in mental health symptoms?

To develop evidence thresholds for AI, we need larger scale public-private partnerships as well as pragmatic trials addressing key clinical questions.

Read more from Dr. Doraiswamy in How to Use Technology Ethically to Increase Access to Mental Healthcare.
Tags

#AI, #pctGR, @Collaboratory1

May 3, 2019: Effect of Financial Bonus Sizes, Loss Aversion, and Increased Social Pressure on Physician Pay-for-Performance: A Randomized Trial and Cohort Study (Amol Navathe, MD, PhD)

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Speaker

Amol S. Navathe, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Health Policy
University of Pennsylvania

Topic

Effect of Financial Bonus Sizes, Loss Aversion, and Increased Social Pressure on Physician Pay-for-Performance: A Randomized Trial and Cohort Study

Keywords

Behavioral economics; Performance incentives; Evidence-based quality-of-care measures; Primary care quality; Pay for performance; Value-based medicine

Key Points

  • Pay-for-performance (P4P) programs are increasingly being used by health insurers and healthcare systems to incentivize physicians to practice higher value medicine, yet the evidence for P4P to affect quality and value of care remains mixed.
  • Behavioral economic principles in this study included increased social pressure and loss aversion added to larger bonus sizes to evaluate whether the intervention would lead to higher achievement of evidence-based quality measures.

Discussion Themes

Study findings included that, while a larger bonus size was associated with significantly improved quality for chronic care patients relative to a propensity-matched comparison group, adding increased social pressure and the opportunity for loss aversion did not lead to further quality improvement.

Attrition during the trial contributed some variability to the analysis.

Read more about pay for performance in healthcare in JAMA Network Open (Navathe et al, 2019) and NEJM Catalyst (2018).

Tags

#behavioraleconomics, #pctGR, @Collaboratory1