Bringing it all together: a novel approach to the development of response criteria for chronic gout clinical trials.

OBJECTIVE

To review a novel approach for constructing composite response criteria for use in chronic gout clinical trials that implements a method of multicriteria decision-making.

METHODS

Preliminary work with paper patient profiles led to a restricted set of core-set domains that were examined using 1000Minds™ by rheumatologists with an interest in gout, and (separately) by OMERACT registrants prior to OMERACT 10. These results and the 1000Minds approach were discussed during OMERACT 10 to help guide next steps in developing composite response criteria.

RESULTS

There were differences in how individual indicators of response were weighted between gout experts and OMERACT registrants. Gout experts placed more weight upon changes in uric acid levels, whereas OMERACT registrants placed more weight upon reducing flares. Discussion highlighted the need for a "pain" domain to be included, for "worsening" to be an additional level within each indicator, for a group process to determine the decision-making within a 1000Minds exercise, and for the value of patient involvement.

CONCLUSION

Although there was not unanimous support for the 1000Minds approach to inform the construction of composite response criteria, there is sufficient interest to justify ongoing development of this methodology and its application to real clinical trial data.