Kleikers PWM, Hooijmans C, Göb E, Langhauser F, Rewell SSJ, Radermacher K, Ritskes-Hoitinga M, Howells DW, Kleinschnitz C, HHW Schmidt H. A combined pre-clinical meta-analysis and randomized confirmatory trial approach to improve data validity for therapeutic target validation.
Sci Rep 2015;
5:13428. [PMID:
26310318 PMCID:
PMC4550831 DOI:
10.1038/srep13428]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2015] [Accepted: 07/27/2015] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Biomedical research suffers from a dramatically poor translational success. For example, in ischemic stroke, a condition with a high medical need, over a thousand experimental drug targets were unsuccessful. Here, we adopt methods from clinical research for a late-stage pre-clinical meta-analysis (MA) and randomized confirmatory trial (pRCT) approach. A profound body of literature suggests NOX2 to be a major therapeutic target in stroke. Systematic review and MA of all available NOX2(-/y) studies revealed a positive publication bias and lack of statistical power to detect a relevant reduction in infarct size. A fully powered multi-center pRCT rejects NOX2 as a target to improve neurofunctional outcomes or achieve a translationally relevant infarct size reduction. Thus stringent statistical thresholds, reporting negative data and a MA-pRCT approach can ensure biomedical data validity and overcome risks of bias.
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