Network Meta-Analysis of ALS Therapies: Efficacy and Safety from 109 Trials

A systematic review and network meta-analysis of pharmacological and biological therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The analysis includes 109 randomized controlled trials involving 16,353 participants, sourced from databases like PubMed and Cochrane up to February 25, 2025. The document was authored by Shixun Zhou and published on figshare in April 2026 under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Compare the relative efficacy of different drug classes for ALS functional decline based on ALSFRS-R scores.
• Assess safety profiles of ALS interventions based on serious adverse event (SAE) risk data.
• Identify promising therapeutic combinations, such as cell therapy with neuroprotective agents, for further clinical investigation.
• Evaluate the impact of receptor agonists on respiratory function preservation based on forced vital capacity (FVC) outcomes.

Strengths

• Systematic analysis of 109 randomized controlled trials, providing a broad evidence base.
• Includes data from 16,353 participants, offering substantial statistical power.
• Employs a Bayesian network meta-analysis methodology for comparative effectiveness ranking.
• Registered with PROSPERO (CRD420251000672), indicating a predefined protocol.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The primary data format is a DOC file, which may require conversion for computational analysis.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Systematic review and network meta-analysis of published randomized controlled trials.

Time Range

Trials searched until February 25, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-24 13:39:34; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global (trials from international databases).