Extrapolating data from clinical trials as we treat patients in real life

Randomised clinical trials are the gold standard for assessing the efficacy of an intervention. However, their results are not always generalisable to real-world populations. Prof. Sharon Giordano (MD Anderson, Houston, USA) sketched how real-world data sometimes can fill this gap. Although being the gold standard, randomised clinical trials have a couple of shortcomings that challenge the application of the outcomes of the trials when treating real-world patients, Giordano said. First of all, clinical trials don’t include (all) representative populations. In general, patients who participate in clinical trials are younger than the average real-world patient, have less comorbidities, have a better performance status, have a higher social-economic status, and often more late-stage cancer. As a consequence, it is not clear whether or not results of the clinical trial are also applicable to patient populations who where excluded from the trial, in particular ...

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Posted on 21 May, 201919 November, 2021