Cardiac Patients in Trials Don’t Reflect Real-World Populations – MedPage Today

Research letter: Applicability of the IMPROVE-IT Trial to Current Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome – JAMA Internal Medicine (link to abstract – $ for full text)

Source: Cardiac Patients in Trials Don’t Reflect Real-World Populations – MedPage Today (free registration required)

Related: Exclusion of patients with concomitant chronic conditions in ongoing randomised controlled trials targeting 10 common chronic conditions and registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: a systematic review of registration details – BMJ Open (free) AND Do cancer clinical trials exaggerate the real-world benefits of drugs? – STAT News (free)

Patients in clinical trials are often younger, healthier (with less comorbidities), better plugged in to the health care system, better educated and wealthier, indicating that the external validity or generalizability of much of the current evidence to real-world settings may be relatively weak.