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Background Sum scores of ordinal outcomes are common in randomized clinical trials. The approaches routinely employed for assessing treatment effects, such as t -tests or Wilcoxon tests, are not particularly powerful in detecting changes in relevant parameters or lack the ability to incorporate baseline information. Hence, tailored statistical methods are needed for the analysis of ordinal outcomes in clinical research. Methods We propose baseline-adjusted proportional odds logistic regression models to overcome previous limitations in the analysis of ordinal outcomes in randomized clinical trials. For the validation of our method, we focus on common ordinal sum score outcomes of neurological clinical trials such as the upper extremity motor score, the spinal cord independence measure, and the self-care subscore of the latter. We compare the statistical power of our models to other conventional approaches in a large simulation study of two-arm randomized clinical trials based on data from the European Multicenter Study about Spinal Cord Injury (EMSCI, ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01571531). We also use the new method as an alternative analysis of the historical Sygen®clinical trial. Results The simulation study of all postulated trial settings demonstrated that the statistical power of the novel method was greater than that of conventional methods. Baseline adjustments were more suited for the analysis of the upper extremity motor score compared to the spinal cord independence measure and its self-care subscore. Conclusions The proposed baseline-adjusted proportional odds models allow the global treatment effect to be directly interpreted. This clear interpretation, the superior statistical power compared to the conventional analysis approaches, and the availability of open-source software support the application of this novel method for the analysis of ordinal outcomes of future clinical trials.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Background: Crovalimab is a novel C5 inhibitor that enables rapid and sustained C5 inhibition with every 4-week subcutaneous maintenance dosing, with the possibility for self-administration. When switching from another C5 inhibitor (binds to a different epitope than crovalimab) to crovalimab and vice versa, transient immune complexes will form and may cause transient immune complex reactions (TICRs). Objectives: To assess TICR occurrence, manifestation, and management in patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) who switched from another C5 inhibitor to crovalimab. Design: COMMODORE 1 and 2 randomized C5 inhibitor-experienced and -naïve patients, respectively, to receive crovalimab or eculizumab. The COMMODORE 1 nonrandomized, descriptive cohort included patients who previously received ravulizumab or approved or higher-than-approved doses of eculizumab. Methods: Pooled data of patients who switched from eculizumab or ravulizumab to crovalimab were evaluated for TICR incidence and severity. TICR treatments and TICR durations were assessed by severity. Results: This descriptive analysis included 201 patients who switched from eculizumab (n = 174) or ravulizumab (n = 27) to crovalimab. Baseline characteristics were generally balanced between patients with and without a TICR. Thirty-nine of 201 patients (19%) experienced TICRs (11% Grades 1–2; 8% Grade 3; no Grades 4–5). Median time to onset and median TICR duration were 1.6 (range, 0.7–4.4) and 1.7 weeks (range, 0.4–34.1), respectively. The most common symptoms were arthralgia (45%), rash (34%), and pyrexia (21%), with no evidence of renal manifestations. Oral corticosteroids were the most common TICR treatment. Grade 3 TICRs were treated with higher oral corticosteroid dose but did not take longer to resolve than Grades 1–2 TICRs. Conclusion: Pooled COMMODORE 1 and 2 data show that TICRs from switching between C5 inhibitors were generally mild to moderate and resolved with appropriate treatment. These results further confirm that crovalimab is well tolerated in patients with PNH. Trial registration: NCT04432584; NCT04434092.