Network Meta-Analysis of ALS Drug 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 PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane, and Web of Science up to February 25, 2025. The study was authored by Shixun Zhou and published on figshare in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Comparing the relative efficacy of different drug classes for ALS based on ALSFRS-R scores.
• Assessing the safety profiles of ALS therapies based on serious adverse event data.
• Ranking interventions for functional decline and respiratory function using SUCRA values.
• Identifying promising specific agents like masitinib or talampanel for further clinical investigation.

Strengths

• Systematic methodology includes 109 trials and 16,353 participants.
• Uses a Bayesian network meta-analysis framework for comparative effectiveness.
• Includes multiple clinical endpoints: ALSFRS-R, forced vital capacity, mortality, and serious adverse events.
• Registered with PROSPERO (CRD420251000672) and uses Cochrane RoB 2 tool for bias assessment.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset is a 26.4 KB DOCX document, indicating limited raw data scope.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Shixun Zhou

Collection Method

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

Time Range

Literature search conducted until February 25, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-24 13:39:35; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global (trials from international databases).