An updated survey for the 2007-2013 period of randomized controlled trials for psoriasis: treatment modalities, study designs, comparators, outcome measures and sponsorship

Abstract

Background: Two reports from the European Dermato-Epidemiology Network psoriasis project have analysed randomized controlled trials for psoriasis published during the periods of 1977-2000 and 2001-2006.

Objective: We sought to update the analysis of randomized controlled trials for the 2007-2013 period from 10 high-impact dermatology and medical journals.

Methods: This survey was conducted by electronic search on the PubMed database for eligible papers. We assessed and compared results to the two aforementioned published reports.

Results: In total, 84 studies were evaluated. Over half of the total trials studied novel therapeutics: 40 (47.6%) trials examined biologics and five (6.0%) examined novel oral agents. Proportion of trials studying more than one treatment modality increased from 7.1% in 2001-2006 to 25.0% in 2007-2013, with a decreased proportion of placebo-controlled studies from 69.3% to 47.1%.

Conclusion: The proportion of trials on novel therapies, including novel oral and biologic agents, has increased. The quality of trials has improved in the aspects of increased active treatment comparisons, including between biologics and conventional agents, and increased study size. Further insight into the influence of pharmaceutical companies can be studied by extending analysis to extension studies and subanalyses.