1. Assessment of Clinical Worsening End Points as a Surrogate for Mortality in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
- Author
-
Élodie Tremblay, Camille Gosselin, Vicky Mai, Annie C. Lajoie, Roubi Kilo, Jason Weatherald, Yves Lacasse, Sebastien Bonnet, Jean-Christophe Lega, and Steeve Provencher
- Subjects
Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension ,Hypertension, Pulmonary ,Physiology (medical) ,Humans ,Regression Analysis ,Familial Primary Pulmonary Hypertension ,Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine ,Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic - Abstract
Background: Clinical worsening (CW) is a composite end point commonly used in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) trials. We aimed to assess the trial-level surrogacy of CW for mortality in PAH trials, and whether the various CW components were similar in terms of frequency of occurrence, treatment-related relative risk (RR) reduction, and importance to patients. Methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cochrane Library (January 1990 to December 2020) for trials evaluating the effects of PAH therapies on CW. The coefficient of determination between the RR for CW and mortality was assessed by regression analysis. The frequency of occurrence, RR reduction, and importance to patients of the CW components were assessed. Results: We included 35 independent cohorts (9450 patients). PAH therapies significantly reduced CW events (RR, 0.64 [95% CI, 0.55–0.73]), including PAH-related hospitalizations (RR, 0.61 [95% CI, 0.47–0.79]), treatment escalation (RR, 0.57 [95% CI, 0.38–0.84]) and symptomatic progression (RR, 0.58 [95% CI, 0.48–0.69]), and modestly reduced all-cause mortality when incorporating deaths occurring after a primary CW-defining event (RR, 0.860 [95% CI, 0.742–0.997]). However, the effects of PAH-specific therapies on CW only modestly correlated with their effects on mortality ( R 2 trial , 0.35 [95% CI, 0.10–0.59]; P Conclusions: PAH therapies significantly reduced CW events, but study-level CW is not a surrogate for mortality in PAH trials. Moreover, components of CW largely vary in frequency, response to therapy, and importance to patients and are thus not interchangeable. Registration: URL: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO ; Unique identifier: CRD42020178949.
- Published
- 2022