For how we live.
I-SPY2.2 tested trastuzumab-deruxtecan plus rilvegostomig before surgery in high-risk HER2-negative breast cancer. In immune-positive tumours 54% had a complete response, and most of them avoided anthracyclines.
In a 98-patient French trial, six-monthly rituximab did not extend remission beyond daily azathioprine in this rare eosinophilic vasculitis — and recipients had more severe infections.
In 120 older adults with acute myeloid leukaemia, adding midostaurin to two-drug therapy did not raise remission rates overall (72% vs 68%), but a small FLT3-mutated subgroup lived longer.
A single-centre randomised trial found the Bergen 4-day treatment cut obsessive-compulsive symptoms far more than an unguided internet CBT programme, with 61% responding at three months versus 25%.
A 210-youth randomised trial of a telehealth aerobic-exercise program found faster symptom recovery at three months than stretching — an edge that disappeared by six months and held only for recent injuries.
In 143 people with poorly controlled type 1 diabetes, a system that prompts injections through glucose-sensor alerts was non-inferior to standard monitoring — and acting on the alerts drove the benefit.
A six-site randomised trial of point-of-care high-sensitivity troponin cut emergency-department length of stay by 47 minutes, with no change in 30-day heart attacks or cardiac deaths.
In 1,429 high-risk breast-cancer patients, a 16-dose regimen covering the internal mammary nodes matched the standard 25-dose course for recurrence and caused far less severe skin damage.
In 1,095 high-risk abdominal-surgery patients, targeting each person's own cardiac index during the operation left the rate of major complications essentially unchanged — 44.3% versus 46.9%.
Among 84 women on aromatase inhibitors, CO2 laser did no better than a fake laser for sexual function at 12 months. Both groups improved — on moisturisers and vibrators given to everyone.
In a 17-person phase 2a trial, once-weekly inhaled SPL84 lifted lung function in up to 70% of treated patients with the 3849+10 kb C→T mutation — a first reported clinical signal for an RNA-targeted inhaled therapy.
SLOWH, a 102-patient randomised trial, compared cutting flow first, oxygen first, or both at once when weaning critically ill adults off high-flow nasal cannula. Success rates of 94%, 81% and 77% did not differ.
A 60-woman phase 2A trial found the dual PPAR agonist reduced liver fat by nearly 15 percentage points more than placebo over 24 weeks — an early, small signal in a group usually left out of fatty-liver drug trials.
Hovilpri (pritelivir), a helicase-primase inhibitor, was approved on 9 October for immunocompromised adults whose herpes lesions resist aciclovir. In its trial, 63% healed by day 28 against 34% on comparator therapy.
A detailed safety analysis of the 12,254-patient OCEANIC-STROKE trial found no significant rise in major bleeding with the factor XI blocker, though lower gastrointestinal bleeding was more frequent.
Teva's subcutaneous depot is built to avoid the post-injection sedation that hobbled the first olanzapine shot. It cleared the FDA on 8 October; in the phase 3 SOLARIS trial it beat placebo on symptoms at eight weeks.
In the phase 3 VERIFY trial, 77% of patients on the hepcidin-mimic drug avoided phlebotomy over weeks 20–32 versus 33% on placebo, and far more kept their haematocrit under control.
The pill joins trastuzumab and pertuzumab as maintenance after induction. In the 654-patient HER2CLIMB-05 trial it stretched median progression-free survival to 24.9 months from 16.3, a hazard ratio of 0.64.
The phase 3 RT CHARM trial found a three-week course of radiation after mastectomy was no worse than the standard five-week course for reconstruction complications, at 12.3% versus 10.2%.
Rhapsido becomes the first drug labelled for the itchy welts raised by scratching or pressure. In the RemIND trial, 29.3% on the pill cleared the provocation test at week 12 versus 14.0% on placebo.
In 204 patients already on standard therapy, pressing a seed on one ear point three times daily left 56.9% clear or almost clear at 8 weeks versus 35.3% with a sham point — a single-centre result needing replication.
The phase 2 ROXAMI trial gave the oral HIF stabiliser roxadustat to 158 STEMI patients after stenting. Infarct size at 30 days was no smaller than with standard care. Later remodelling findings were exploratory.
RINGSIDE phase 2 tested three doses of oral varegacestat in 42 adults with progressing desmoid tumours. The lowest daily dose gave the deepest shrinkage and was carried into phase 3. No comparator arm.
In a 134-patient phase 3 crossover trial, deucrictibant — the first oral bradykinin B2 receptor blocker — brought symptom relief in a median 1.28 hours, against more than 12 hours on placebo.
In a 348-patient trial, patients in sustained low disease activity who stepped down their biologic kept it almost as often as those who stayed on full dose over 24 weeks — but some measures still favoured continuing.
In a 12-month trial of 89 older adults with vascular cognitive impairment, strength training did not slow whole-brain white-matter lesions overall — but it did in women, and in two specific brain regions.
In a 462-person phase 3 trial, a synthesised copy of semaglutide, HD1916, cut body weight 13.1% over 44 weeks against 14.4% for the branded drug — inside the margin set for calling them equivalent.
A phase 1/2 trial gave mosunetuzumab plus polatuzumab to 101 older, unfit or frail people with untreated large B-cell lymphoma. The end-of-treatment response rate was 61.4%, with a complete response in 56.4%.
A single-arm phase 2 trial added glofitamab to pola-R-CHP in 41 people with newly diagnosed B-cell lymphoma. The best complete-response rate was 95%, cytokine release stayed grade 1, and no neurotoxicity was reported.
In preregistered trials of more than 90,000 patients, telling people an algorithm flagged them as high-risk lifted vaccination by a few points — and saying the algorithm was involved changed nothing.
A randomised trial enrolled 3,259 underserved people referred for lung cancer screening. Adding free medication to standard advice did not raise quit rates; adding financial incentives roughly doubled them — to 8.8%.
In the Nordic SWEDEGRAFT trial, the no-touch vein-harvesting technique left the rate of death, heart attack, or repeat procedures at 19.8% versus 20.4% through seven years — a difference indistinguishable from chance.
In the industry-funded evERA trial, giredestrant plus everolimus delayed progression of ER-positive breast cancer — but the clearest benefit was in ESR1-mutated tumours, and the endpoint was a surrogate, not survival.
Thirteen years on, the independent DiAPREV-IT trial still shows no overall effect from GAD-alum. A 27-child genetic subgroup saw onset delayed — but the other subgroup got worse.
The UV-free TransVitD patch raised vitamin D in animals and lab-grown skin. In a randomised trial of 108 volunteers it was safe but did not lift blood levels beyond what a small oral dose would.
AbbVie's once-daily pill cleared the FDA on 25 September as a new molecular entity. Across three phase 3 TEMPO trials it beat placebo in early Parkinson's and as an add-on to levodopa.
In the phase 3 SYNCHRONIZE-2 trial, the glucagon/GLP-1 dual agonist beat placebo on weight over 76 weeks. The effect was solid but smaller than the class leaders manage, and the maker funded it.
Two phase 3 trials put the oral drug safiglipron ahead of placebo and non-inferior to dapagliflozin on HbA1c. Both ran only in China, were maker-funded, and showed dose-dependent gut side effects.
A post hoc analysis of the BAMBINI trial asked whether losing too much weight could backfire on fertility in PCOS. It did not: every degree of weight loss was linked to a better chance of ovulating.
There has been no reliable way to prevent pre-eclampsia at term. PREVENT-PE screened over 8,000 women late in pregnancy and offered earlier birth to those at highest risk — and pre-eclampsia fell by nearly a third.
Injecting one sperm into each egg was meant for severe male-factor cases, yet clinics now use it widely. Pooling six randomised trials found no live-birth advantage over standard IVF when sperm is not the problem.
Computer-aided detection lifts polyp pickup in ordinary screening. In 757 patients having surveillance for an inherited cancer syndrome, a randomised trial could not show the same gain.
In the phase 3 UKALL14 trial, one cycle of the T-cell drug nelarabine after induction was well tolerated but left event-free survival essentially unchanged in adults aged 25 to 65.
A randomised Asian trial in 130 patients found no efficacy gap between the two drug regimens for active lupus nephritis, but serious infections and all three deaths fell in the mycophenolate group.
ROAM/EORTC-1308, an independent phase 3 trial, randomised 157 patients after complete brain-tumour removal; adjuvant radiotherapy improved five-year disease-free survival, but the benefit's confidence interval was wide.
RESOLVE randomised 880 treatment-naive, non-cirrhotic patients to a shorter sofosbuvir–velpatasvir course; cure rates were non-inferior to the 12-week standard, with implications for the cost of elimination programmes.
The PLUSS trial put a steroid directly into the lungs of 1,059 infants born before 28 weeks. Survival free of chronic lung disease barely differed from surfactant alone.
A single-centre, placebo-controlled trial found targeted onabotulinumtoxinA injections cut dystonia-related foot pain without harming movement. The effect was large, but the trial randomised only 33 people.
Final results of the phase 3 IMpassion050 trial show adding the immunotherapy atezolizumab to standard HER2-targeted treatment did not improve event-free or disease-free survival.
The phase 3 CLL6 RESIDUUM trial extended progression-free survival by about 22 months in patients left with residual disease, but overall survival did not differ and the drug caused more infections.
The CENTERSTONE trial found a single dose lowered lab-confirmed spread to household contacts by about a third, but spread that made contacts ill was not significantly cut, and resistant virus emerged in some patients.
In the Scandinavian phase 3 ASAC trial, daily aspirin failed to improve disease-free survival after treatment of colorectal cancer liver metastases — and overall survival was worse on the drug.
ACHIEVE-4 found the non-peptide GLP-1 pill non-inferior to insulin glargine for major cardiac events over two years, with less severe hypoglycaemia but far more gastrointestinal upset. Lilly funded it.
Ketamine cuts suicidal thinking fast but briefly. A 50-person trial gave low-dose buprenorphine afterward and saw the effect hold — an early, single-centre result in a high-risk group.
ZUPREME 1 tested a once-weekly amylin analogue that works differently from GLP-1 drugs, finding up to 9.4% weight loss at 28 weeks and gastrointestinal side-effects close to placebo. Zealand Pharma funded it.
Merck's sotatercept gained an FDA efficacy supplement on 21 September. In the phase 3 ZENITH trial, a composite of death, transplant or hospitalisation hit 17.4% on the drug versus 54.7% on placebo.
In TRIUMPH-1, a triple hormone-receptor agonist produced a 25% average weight loss at the top dose over 80 weeks, and also eased knee pain and sleep apnoea. The trial was funded by Eli Lilly.
The FDA approved PTC Therapeutics' sepiapterin in July 2025. In the phase 3 APHENITY trial, responders saw a 63% fall in blood phenylalanine over six weeks against roughly no change on placebo.
In the phase 3b STRIDE trial, people with peripheral artery disease and type 2 diabetes walked 13% farther at 52 weeks than on placebo (treatment ratio 1.13; p=0.0004). The gain is modest; Novo Nordisk funded it.
A randomised trial at eight South Korean hospitals found pulse methylprednisolone no better than a non-pulse regimen for surviving an acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
A Swiss investigator-led trial tested whether isolating the back wall of the left atrium on top of pulsed-field pulmonary vein isolation cuts arrhythmia recurrence. The primary answer was no.
In the phase 2 KRAKEN trial, muvalaplin lowered lipoprotein(a) by 47.6% to 85.8% over 12 weeks on an intact-particle assay. Eli Lilly funded it, and the trial was not built to measure heart attacks or strokes.
In the GSK-funded phase 3 MATINEE trial, the anti-IL-5 antibody lowered moderate or severe exacerbations from 1.01 to 0.80 a year — but symptom and quality-of-life endpoints showed no significant benefit.
In a phase 2 trial in people whose hidradenitis suppurativa had already failed anti-TNF drugs, two lutikizumab doses beat placebo at 16 weeks. A third did not, and the placebo response was high.
In the phase 3 LIBerate-HR trial, lerodalcibep lowered LDL cholesterol 56.2% more than placebo at 52 weeks on top of statins. It won approval in 2026; no outcome trial has yet reported.
Eli Lilly's oral Inluriyo gained an FDA efficacy supplement on 18 September. In the phase 3 EMBER-3 trial, adding abemaciclib lifted median progression-free survival to 9.4 months from 5.5.
The oral histone deacetylase inhibitor cleared the FDA in March 2024. In the phase 3 EPIDYS trial, boys on givinostat still lost function over 72 weeks — just less of it than those on placebo.
A single-surgeon randomised trial of 180 knees found small but statistically supported gains for robot-assisted functional alignment over conventional mechanical alignment at two years.
In EMPACT-MI, the SGLT2 inhibitor missed its primary endpoint: 8.2% of patients had a heart-failure hospitalisation or died versus 9.1% on placebo (hazard ratio 0.90; p=0.21). Boehringer and Lilly funded it.
In the DIABIL-2 trial, low-dose interleukin-2 hit its immune target in people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, yet failed to preserve insulin-producing cells at one year.
Bristol Myers Squibb's mavacamten gained an FDA efficacy supplement on 30 September. In the pivotal EXPLORER-HCM trial, 37% on the drug met the primary endpoint versus 17% on placebo.
AMPLIFIED enriched for early rheumatoid arthritis patients thought to respond best to abatacept, then compared it head-to-head with adalimumab. At week 24 the two drugs were indistinguishable.
A phase 2b trial in 4936 Gambian children missed its primary endpoint, but ETVAX cut moderate-to-severe ETEC diarrhoea by 80.6% once parasite co-infections were excluded.
In the pragmatic BEAT Tuberculosis trial, an all-oral six-month regimen cured 86.1% of patients with rifampicin-resistant TB — statistically non-inferior to the nine-month standard, with similar safety.
Rezzayo's once-weekly echinocandin can now be used in adolescents with candidaemia who have few other options. The expansion rests on adult data and modelling, not on studies in children.
BeiGene's PD-1 antibody, added to the HER2 drug zanidatamab and chemotherapy, lifted median overall survival to 26.4 months from 19.2 in the HERIZON-GEA-01 trial. The gain concentrated in the strongest HER2-expressers.
In a double-blind trial of 65 etonogestrel-implant users with frequent or prolonged bleeding, a five-day course of tranexamic acid worked no better than placebo on any bleeding measure.
In a 76-woman randomised trial, a six-hour daily eating window and standard calorie restriction each produced about a 4% weight loss over six months, with no advantage for either approach.
A European trial stopped early for futility: clinical pregnancy occurred in 15.7% of women given transdermal testosterone before IVF and 14.9% given placebo. The trial was funded by Ferring.
In a 4,376-woman trial across 24 Chinese centres, natural-cycle embryo transfer gave the same healthy-live-birth rate as a programmed hormone regimen, with less pre-eclampsia and postpartum haemorrhage.
In the publicly funded SWOG S1600 trial, specialised immunonutrition before and after radical cystectomy left 30-day complication rates essentially unchanged: 62% versus 58% on a standard drink.
The academic MATRix/IELSG43 trial found autologous transplant lifted 3-year progression-free survival to 78% from 51%, but at the cost of more toxicity and more treatment-related deaths.
A phase 1 trial in 288 Chinese children found the experimental injectable vaccine well tolerated and able to raise antibodies. It measured immune response, not whether it prevents disease.
A Shionogi-funded randomised trial found that giving household contacts a five-day course dropped the rate of symptomatic Covid from 9.0% to 2.9%, with no severe cases in either group.
The publicly funded E4512 trial found two years of crizotinib after surgery did not prolong disease-free survival against observation, with a hazard ratio of 1.08 and no safety upside.
In the investigator-led Danish DALIAH trial, pegylated interferon-alfa and hydroxyurea produced similar molecular responses by intention-to-treat, but far more patients stopped interferon.
A cluster-randomised trial in nearly 2,000 US nursing homes found fewer confirmed influenza outbreaks with a recombinant vaccine in a moderate flu season, but no difference in a near-flu-free one.
A small crossover trial found 5 mg of melatonin worsened glucose handling and cut early insulin secretion in people carrying the MTNR1B risk variant, but not in non-carriers.
In the LOSE-AF trial, an eight-month low-calorie programme cut weight by 9.7% in older adults with AF. It did not change their symptoms, their AF burden, or their need for further rhythm treatment.
Added to an SGLT2 inhibitor, the aldosterone-synthase inhibitor cut office systolic pressure 7.5 mm Hg and albuminuria about a quarter in 59 adults with CKD. Kidney function dipped slightly; the maker funded it.
In the phase 3 Bax24 trial, the aldosterone-synthase inhibitor cut 24-hour ambulatory systolic pressure 14.0 mm Hg more than placebo over 12 weeks. AstraZeneca funded it, and three patients developed high potassium.
There is still no licensed Lyme vaccine. In a phase 2 trial of VLA15, a second yearly booster revived antibody levels against all six OspA serotypes, with more sore arms but no new safety signals.
Gilead's phase 3 trial in 539 patients was terminated after the CD47 antibody failed to improve remission or survival and caused more fatal adverse events than azacitidine alone.
In 20 healthy young adults, closed-loop acoustic stimulation of slow waves boosted word recall, and the benefit tracked a shift in how sleep spindles nested within slow oscillations.
There is no approved drug for methamphetamine use disorder. In 339 patients treated in ordinary clinics, a generic antidepressant cut use by about two days a month more than placebo, with more dropouts from side-effects.
In LatAm-FINGERS, 1,065 at-risk older adults across 11 countries did better on cognitive tests with structured coaching than with flexible health advice over two years. The gap was small.
In the industry-funded trial, young responders who kept taking the dopamine D1 blocker relapsed less than those tapered to placebo. The effect was clear in children but not in the small adult group.
In 643 Indian infants, an adjuvanted dose-sparing IPV with about a quarter of the antigen was non-inferior to standard IPV across all three poliovirus types — a possible answer to supply strain.
A Manaus trial found chloroquine alone let 27% of Plasmodium vivax patients relapse by day 42; dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine cut that to 2.4%. Paired with primaquine, both drugs did well.
Ruxolitinib cream beat a placebo cream for cutaneous lichen planus over 16 weeks, but the phase 2 trial randomised only 64 patients and was funded by the drug's maker.
Regeneron's activin A antibody, brand name Pasatru, cleared the FDA on 19 August. In the pivotal 63-patient trial, new abnormal-bone lesions fell by 90% or more against placebo over 56 weeks.
The Scholar Rock antibody cleared the FDA on 11 September. In the phase 3 SAPPHIRE trial, apitegromab plus standard therapy beat placebo by 1.8 points on a motor-function scale at 12 months.
The final analysis of Roche's phase 3 trial found the anti-TIGIT antibody did not significantly extend progression-free or overall survival when added to atezolizumab in 521 patients.
Two-year blinded data and open-label follow-up from the ELATIVE trial show the drug kept improving liver blood tests in primary biliary cholangitis — but the endpoint is still a surrogate, and the trial is industry-run.
In the company-run CONDOR trial, brolucizumab injections outperformed panretinal laser for proliferative diabetic retinopathy over 54 weeks — while intraocular inflammation was far more common in the drug arm.
In 3,000 patients eligible for blood thinners, the device maker's trial found left atrial appendage closure noninferior to anticoagulant drugs, and superior for non-procedure-related bleeding at three years.
A meta-analysis of 10 randomised trials found ultra-processed diets raised weight and eating rate, yet the effect on how much people ate mostly disappeared when diets were not more energy-dense.
LOGICAL randomised 1,840 unresponsive adults in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland to conservative or liberal oxygen in intensive care. Favourable outcome at 180 days was 38.2% against 39.7%.
In the phase 3 INDIGO trial, weekly obexelimab roughly halved the risk of a flare in this rare fibroinflammatory disease and spared patients steroids — a positive result in a condition with no approved drug.
Heartburn is one of the most common complaints in pregnancy. Diet and posture changes come first; a Cochrane review found antacid-type medicines relieve it, but the trial evidence is thin and drug choice needs care.
In 410 German women, 68% who had liposuction met the pain-reduction target at 12 months versus 8% on conservative therapy. Serious adverse events were higher after surgery.
The VITAL trial randomised 2,508 patients aged 50 and older to propofol-based or inhaled anaesthesia and found no difference in days alive and at home at 30 days, or in death, delirium or major complications.
The TRACK trial was stopped early for futility. The blood thinner failed to reduce a composite of cardiovascular events, while major bleeding rose by half. Bayer, which makes the drug, was a listed collaborator.
In the phase 3 TenCRAOS trial, intravenous tenecteplase given within 4.5 hours did no better than aspirin at recovering sight, and carried more bleeding — including one fatal brain haemorrhage.
The NIH-funded STArT trial in children and young adults was halted for futility: time to crisis resolution was 60.8 hours with arginine versus 65.8 with placebo, well within the range of chance.
SOLARIS, a publicly funded phase 3 trial, tested vitamin D3 added to chemotherapy after a promising phase 2 signal. Progression-free survival was 11.8 versus 10.3 months — not a significant difference.
A double-blind Danish trial gave the drug or placebo during resuscitation at 21 hospitals. Restored circulation occurred in 39% versus 37% — no meaningful difference — and bicarbonate raised blood alkalosis and sodium.
In the SNAP platform trial, cefazolin was non-inferior to flucloxacillin or cloxacillin for 90-day survival in methicillin-susceptible S. aureus bacteraemia, and caused notably less acute kidney injury.
In the phase 3 SWOG/NRG S1914 trial, adding atezolizumab to stereotactic radiotherapy for high-risk, inoperable early lung cancer left 2-year survival at 82% in both groups and caused more serious side effects.
In the industry-funded ADVANCE OUTCOMES trial, the once-daily prostacyclin-pathway drug more than halved the risk of a first worsening event, but drove far more treatment discontinuations for side-effects.
The PROPOSITIS trial put babies on high-flow oxygen face-down or on their backs. Escalation of care was 15% versus 21% — a difference that did not reach significance, and the authors call the study inconclusive.
In GASTRIC-PICU, 4,700 ventilated children were randomised to routine gastric residual checks or none. Dropping the checks was non-inferior for survival and ventilator-free days, and improved nutrition.
Ceperognastat, an oral OGA inhibitor, showed no benefit on the primary cognitive endpoint at 100 weeks. The higher dose progressed 32% faster than placebo and had more serious adverse events.
A trial across 24 Zambian clinics found a person-centred care package lifted the share of patients in care a year after a treatment gap from 51.5% to 60.1%, and halved repeat interruptions.
VICTORY randomised 238 adults with severe burns to intravenous vitamin C or placebo. It was stopped early: 28-day mortality was 15.0% versus 7.6%, and the trial crossed a prespecified harm threshold.
REPLENISH randomised 381 patients with relapsed polymyalgia rheumatica. Sustained remission at 52 weeks reached about 41% on secukinumab versus 20.4% on placebo. Novartis funded the trial.
In the 1,658-person PUSH trial, a behavioural programme with financial incentives raised urine volume but left symptomatic stone recurrences unchanged over two years — 19% against 20% with usual care.
Rejoyn, the first prescription digital therapeutic cleared for major depression, beat a sham app on a backup analysis. Its pre-specified primary endpoint fell just short of significance.
In the phase 2 Vibrance-1 trial, alixorexton lifted mean sleep latency from about 2 minutes on placebo to 24 or more on the drug. The six-week study was funded by the manufacturer.
In the SOLARIO trial, patients who got local antibiotics at surgery did no worse on a short systemic course than a long one, and reported far fewer side effects. The comparison was independently funded.
In the publicly funded EPoS II trial, waiting five years before the next colonoscopy was no worse than the recommended three at an interim look, with near-identical cancer rates. Ten-year data are still to come.
Ginger's strongest evidence is unglamorous: it eases nausea in pregnancy and during chemotherapy, and modestly relieves osteoarthritis pain. The trials are small and the quality is moderate at best.
Beetroot juice really does lower blood pressure — the effect is one of the better-documented in food science, driven by dietary nitrate. But most trials are short and small, and no study shows it prevents heart attacks.
"Superfood" is a marketing word, not a scientific one. Blueberries carry real evidence for the heart and, tentatively, the ageing brain — but most of it is observational or short-term markers, not hard outcomes.
In two randomised trials, a grief-specific psychotherapy roughly doubled response rates against strong comparators. Citalopram alone did not beat placebo — but it did help the depression that often travels with grief.
Anxiety disorders in young people are treatable. In the largest trial, combining CBT with an SSRI worked best, and both beat placebo. Talking therapy alone also clearly outperforms no treatment.
A 40-person Harvard trial aimed accelerated magnetic stimulation using each patient's own connectivity scan. Depression scores fell further than with standard scalp measurement, though the trial was small.
In the French GETUG AFU 18 trial an 80 Gy dose beat the standard 70 Gy on 10-year progression-free survival (83.6% vs 72.2%), but the advantage at the prespecified 5-year mark was far smaller.
Two blinded randomised trials found magnetic wrist straps and copper bracelets worked no better than dummy versions for arthritis pain. The reported relief looks like a placebo effect.
Early studies made elderberry look promising for colds, and sales topped $100 million. But the trials are small, and the most rigorous one — a randomised flu trial in emergency patients — found no benefit at all.
Echinacea is a pharmacy staple every winter. But a Cochrane review of 24 trials found no reliable treatment benefit, and the largest trial shaved barely half a day off a cold — a difference too small to be sure was real.
You cannot turn a healthy immune system up like a dial, and nothing on the supplement shelf has been shown to. What the trials do show is narrower: fix a sleep deficit and you catch fewer colds.
In the RESPOND randomised trial, guided self-help and remote problem-solving delivered by non-professionals cut anxiety and depression scores well below usual care at follow-up.
Two Cochrane reviews put numbers on it: oral terbinafine and azoles cure far more toenail infections than placebo, while newer topical solutions work but cure a minority — over nearly a year of daily use.
TEMPLE, an AbbVie-funded phase 3b trial, is the first direct test of the CGRP blocker atogepant against topiramate — a long-used preventive many patients cannot tolerate.
SINGLE-AF randomised 1,803 South Koreans with borderline stroke risk to a direct oral anticoagulant or nothing. The drug lowered a composite of stroke, bleeding and death at two years, from 1.5% to 0.5%.
In PHOENYCS GO, dapirolizumab pegol lifted the share of lupus patients reaching a composite response at 48 weeks to 50% from 35% on placebo — a real but modest 14.6-point gain.
Open-angle glaucoma steals side vision so slowly that half of people who have it don't know. There is no way to prevent it — but a placebo-controlled trial showed pressure-lowering drops preserve vision.
Eye exercises won't sharpen blurry sight or cure nearsightedness — glasses and surgery do that. But one focusing problem, convergence insufficiency, does respond: an office-based programme helped 73% in a trial.
When fingers and toes turn white then blue in the cold, it is often Raynaud's phenomenon. A Cochrane review finds the standard drugs — calcium channel blockers — cut attacks only modestly.
In the investigator-led CAVIAR trial, adding the PCSK9 inhibitor alirocumab to a statin after heart transplant more than halved LDL cholesterol but did not slow coronary plaque growth at one year.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is median-nerve compression at the wrist. Cochrane reviews find steroid injections clearly help for about a month, while surgery beats non-surgical care at three and six months.
An 840-child US trial gave the antibiotic to toddlers with moderate-to-severe wheezing in the emergency department. Symptom scores were no better than placebo, and the study was stopped for futility.
The Essilor-designed HAL lenses cut two-year myopia progression by 71% versus ordinary glasses in 159 American children. The company employs the study's authors, and the result backs the device's US clearance.
A large public randomised trial found reading a book in bed nudged sleep quality up. But the format matters: paper helps, while a glowing screen can quietly work against you.
The large trials built to confirm vitamin E's promise came back null, and a meta-analysis tied 400 IU a day or more to a small rise in all-cause mortality.
A 21,442-person trial of cocoa flavanol extract missed its main heart target. The blood-pressure effect is real but small — and nearly half of dark chocolate products exceeded a strict lead limit.
Omega-3 supplements are widely recommended for dry eye, but the largest randomised trial found them no better than an olive-oil placebo. A Cochrane review leaves the case uncertain at best.
The advice to lose weight slowly assumes fast loss is regained faster. Two randomised trials found the rate barely affects long-term regain — though rapid loss can cost more lean mass and carries its own risks.
In people who are iron-deficient without anaemia, supplements ease self-reported fatigue in trials — but do nothing for objective exercise capacity, and the benefit hinges on being iron-deficient, not just tired.
Walking pads promise movement without leaving your desk. A trial found walking while working slowed typing but did not harm cognition; a second found hourly walking cut post-meal glucose and blood pressure.
The LEAP trial found that feeding peanut to high-risk babies from infancy cut peanut allergy at age five from 13.7% to 1.9%. A follow-up showed the protection held — but high-risk infants should be assessed first.
Positional flat head affects nearly half of two-month-olds and is usually mild. In the one randomised trial, moulding helmets matched the natural course — and every parent reported a side effect.
Popular extras like embryo genetic testing and endometrial scratching did not raise live-birth rates in their biggest randomised trials, and the UK regulator warns most patients need none of them.
Heavy loads drove significantly greater one-rep-max strength than light loads in a 21-study meta-analysis, while size gains were similar. A trial found strength maxed out at low volume, the main driver of growth.
When you eat may shape how you sleep, but the science is young. The clearest signal is that a heavy meal close to bedtime disrupts sleep, while simply shrinking your eating window neither reliably helps nor harms it.
In the 142,250-person NHS-Galleri trial, three rounds of screening did not reduce stage III or IV cancers versus usual care. A fall in stage IV cancers alone leaves the case unproven.
Two meta-analyses of dozens of randomised trials agree that about 3 grams a day of oat beta-glucan lowers LDL cholesterol by a small, real amount. The effect is genuine, modest, and dose-dependent.
US POINTER randomised 2,111 at-risk older adults to two lifestyle programmes. The structured version beat the self-guided one on cognition — but by a modest margin, and there was no do-nothing group to compare against.
The best single randomised trial found morning light beat a sham device over eight weeks, but the effect is most reliable when light is added to an antidepressant rather than used alone.
Urinary infections in men were long treated as automatically complicated. A randomised trial found seven days of antibiotics non-inferior to fourteen, and guidelines say not to treat urine that causes no symptoms.
Men who carry a BRCA2 mutation develop prostate cancer earlier and in more aggressive forms. Trial evidence now supports offering them PSA screening from 40; the case for BRCA1 carriers is weaker.
Obesity and metabolic syndrome push men's testosterone down. One large trial shows testosterone can cut new diabetes modestly, but the effect is smaller than weight loss and comes with safety trade-offs.
Gout affects about one in twenty American men, driven by high uric acid. Guidelines and randomised trials back long-term urate-lowering to a target below 6 mg/dL, yet only a third of patients receive it.
The TRAVERSE trial cleared its cardiovascular safety in 5,246 high-risk men; the Testosterone Trials found a real but moderate sexual-function benefit. Guidelines reserve it for genuine, twice-confirmed deficiency.
Creatine is not a testosterone booster — the trials show it leaves testosterone unchanged. The baldness scare traces to a single 20-man study that found a rise in DHT, a result no one has replicated in 15 years.
Failing mitochondria are one of ageing's core hallmarks, and human trials of mitochondria-targeted compounds show flickers of benefit — but the strongest endpoints keep coming back null.
Observational studies tie hearing loss to faster mental decline. But the first large randomised trial found no overall benefit from hearing aids over three years — with a signal of help only in higher-risk older adults.
A landmark trial pushed blood pressure hard and cut mild cognitive impairment — but its headline dementia result fell short of significance after the study stopped early. The pooled trial evidence is real, and modest.
Two things you do in bed have randomised evidence for nocturnal reflux: raising the head of the bed cut acid exposure from 21% to 15%, and a device that kept people on their left side nearly doubled treatment success.
Topical retinol is the over-the-counter cousin of prescription tretinoin. In the cleanest test of the pure ingredient, three-times-a-week retinol beat its own vehicle on fine wrinkles and built new collagen — slowly.
In the TESEO trial, benznidazole for 30 days matched the 60-day standard for clearing the parasite and caused fewer side effects, pointing to a gentler regimen for a neglected disease.
A six-month randomised trial found liver-fat improvement tracked weight loss and lower ultra-processed food intake, not whether people were assigned a Mediterranean or low-carbohydrate pattern.
Open-label follow-up of the phase 3 LUNA3 trial shows rilzabrutinib's platelet responses were durable and sometimes appeared in people who had not responded at first — but a minority reached the mark.
Two randomised UK trials tested giving the vaccines together. Systemic reactions stayed mostly mild and immune responses held up, though one trial saw more sore arms and a dip in COVID antibodies with co-administration.
The injected vaccine contains no live virus. In a Cochrane review, inactivated vaccines raised fever only from 1.5% to 2.3%, and a randomised crossover trial found no excess systemic symptoms over saline placebo.
Software that interprets cardiotocography in labour lifts clinicians' accuracy in reader studies. The largest randomised trial of computerised interpretation, in 47,062 women, found no benefit for mothers or babies.
In the CREST-2 trials, stenting or surgery added to intensive medical treatment left cognition no better at four years than medical treatment alone in people with severe asymptomatic carotid stenosis.
In people with healthy kidneys, trials find high-protein diets do not worsen kidney function. The picture changes for those who already have reduced function, where animal protein may speed decline.
A network meta-analysis of 118 trials and 31,195 men found every oral PDE5 inhibitor beat placebo, with tadalafil ranked most effective. Guidelines make the tablets, after a health check, the first-line choice.
ASPREE randomised 19,114 healthy older adults to low-dose aspirin or placebo. It made no difference to disability-free survival, and modestly raised deaths and major haemorrhage.
The beauty claims for silk pillowcases — fewer wrinkles, less acne, smoother hair — have no direct trials behind them. The most rigorous test of silk fabric on skin, in eczema, found it added nothing.
The trials that licensed minoxidil ran for 24 to 48 weeks, and a five-year follow-up shows why the honest answer to 'when can I stop' is: you probably can't without losing the gain.
The advice to look 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes is everywhere. A two-week trial in symptomatic computer users found it cut eye-strain and dry-eye symptoms, but changed no measurable sign of eye health.
A nine-man study found hair fibres thickened from 0.085 to 0.092 mm after 24 weeks of daily massage. The larger dataset was a self-reported survey — run by a hair-loss website.
Told to cut fat or cut carbs, dieters in a 609-person Stanford trial lost 5.3 versus 6.0 kg over a year — a 0.7 kg gap. An 811-person trial agreed: the calorie deficit, not the macronutrient ratio, drives weight loss.
A randomised trial found ordinary ibuprofen cut acute mountain sickness from 69% to 43% on a fast ascent. A Cochrane review found most supplements and pre-acclimatisation gadgets do not hold up.
At one year, 79% of newly diagnosed patients given early infliximab plus an immunomodulator were in steroid-free, surgery-free remission, versus 15% treated conventionally.
Nausea in early pregnancy is common and usually mild. Ginger has the best trial support for nausea, vitamin B6 and doxylamine are options, and acupuncture shows no clear benefit.
Weekly scans found thigh muscle grew measurably within about three to four weeks, once early swelling was discounted. A biopsy study found real fibre growth appeared only later, at ten weeks.
A jog and a few stretches has thin evidence for cutting injuries. Structured programmes that add strength and balance work — like the FIFA 11+ — cut football injuries by roughly a third in trials.
In the 2,137-participant PrEggNut trial, mothers who ate a diet rich in eggs and peanuts through pregnancy and breastfeeding had infants with the same allergy rate as the comparison group.
An independent 2026 meta-analysis of AAV micro-dystrophin trials found small, mostly uncontrolled functional benefits — largest in the youngest boys — set against serious harms including rare deaths.
Randomised trials show a Palaeolithic diet trims weight and risk markers in the short term. A two-year trial found the early edge over an ordinary healthy diet had mostly faded — and that people struggled to stick to it.
A 2024 trial randomised heart-risk patients to a dozen eggs a week or almost none. Over four months, blood cholesterol barely moved — echoing an earlier year-long trial in people with diabetes.
A fear that shaped urology for decades held that raising testosterone feeds prostate cancer. Randomised trials and a large 2024 safety analysis find no such rise in screened men.
In the ProtecT trial's patient-reported data, surgery hit urinary control and erections hardest and radiotherapy the bowel, while monitoring let function fade slowly. Cancer deaths were the same.
European screening cut prostate-cancer deaths by 21% at 13 years, at the cost of overdiagnosis; a UK trial of a single test found no mortality benefit. US guidance now makes it a personal choice for men 55 to 69.
A landmark trial found men could safely delay repair of a minimally symptomatic groin hernia. Over the following decade, though, most crossed over to an operation as symptoms grew.
The bestselling herbal for an enlarged prostate flopped in the trials: even at triple the usual dose it beat placebo by nothing. The hair-loss claim rests on a handful of small, weak studies rather than proof.
A high number does buy measurably more protection — in one real-use trial far fewer people burned on the SPF 100 side. But how much you apply, and whether you reapply, moves the needle more than the label.
A head-to-head trial found both tools nudged facial measurements over eight weeks, but the effects were small, mechanical and short-lived. There is no evidence they 'sculpt' the face or drain toxins.
A 2025 meta-analysis of 10 trials found small, short-term reductions in weight and BMI — but the studies were heterogeneous, and the viral single trial that fuelled the hype is one small study, not a settled result.
Occasional snoring is common in young children and often harmless. Loud, habitual snoring with pauses in breathing can mean obstructive sleep apnoea — a treatable problem that surgery can improve.
Croup gives young children a barking cough and noisy breathing. It is usually mild and self-limiting, and a single dose of oral steroid shortens it — with a low dose working about as well as a high one.
Regular moisturisers and short courses of topical steroids are the mainstays, with modest trial support. Most children improve with age, and popular add-ons like bleach baths are no better than plain water.
The first randomised head-to-head trial of the two obesity drugs gave 751 adults the maximum tolerated dose of each for 72 weeks. Tirzepatide cut weight by 20.2%, semaglutide by 13.7%.
A randomised trial and a 21-study meta-analysis found thyroid hormone normalised the blood test but left tiredness and symptom scores unchanged. A guideline now advises against routine treatment.
A 503-patient trial found surgery no better than physiotherapy plus a steroid injection for frozen shoulder. A meta-analysis of 65 studies pointed to early intra-articular steroid as the one clear winner.
A pooled study of 1.44 million adults links activity to lower risk of 13 cancers — but not all, and not melanoma. A 2025 randomised trial now shows exercise after colon cancer improves survival.
A Cochrane review found lumbar supports do not prevent back pain and their treatment value was unclear. A new French randomised trial found a soft belt added to usual care modestly improved pain and disability.
Two large trials, ETHOS and IMPACT, found adding an inhaled steroid to a two-bronchodilator inhaler lowered exacerbation rates in COPD — at the cost of more pneumonia.
In 370 nulliparous women, instilling mepivacaine into the uterus before IUD placement lowered pain by about 15 mm on a 100-mm scale versus saline. It is a real effect, not a cure for the procedure.
In a 304-veteran trial, prazosin matched placebo on trauma nightmares and sleep quality. Sleep medicine's one recommended treatment for nightmare disorder is a behavioural therapy, not a drug.
The line is marketing, not trial data. A meta-analysis of 13 randomised trials found adding breakfast raised daily calories and, if anything, nudged weight up, not down. A controlled feeding trial explains why.
Six months of dietitian sessions aimed at a high-fibre diet nudged diet quality but left estimated 10-year cardiovascular risk, HbA1c, cholesterol and blood pressure essentially unchanged versus standard care.
A 2019 pooling of 12 trials rated peppermint oil safe and effective for IBS, with a number-needed-to-treat of three. The largest, most rigorous trial then missed its primary endpoint against placebo.
The belief that a razor makes hair return coarser, faster or darker is one of medicine's durable myths. Controlled studies going back decades find no change in thickness, colour or growth rate.
In the LATA trial across four countries, 0.9% of teens on long-acting cabotegravir–rilpivirine lost viral suppression by 96 weeks, versus 6.4% on daily tablets — a superiority result.
A double-blind trial gave 17,598 people pantoprazole or placebo for three years and tracked pneumonia, fractures, kidney disease and dementia. Only gut infections rose, and only modestly.
In FINEARTS-HF, 6,001 patients with an ejection fraction of 40% or more had fewer worsening-heart-failure events on finerenone. Cardiovascular deaths were not lower.
Cold sores heal on their own in about a week, and nothing clears the virus for good. Creams and pills shave hours to roughly a day off an episode — but only if started at the first tingle.
In a two-week trial, 100 adults drank coffee or avoided caffeine on random days. Coffee did not raise the upper-chamber skipped beats it was blamed for — but it nudged up lower-chamber ones and cut sleep.
A 140-woman randomised trial found diet-and-exercise coaching, added to hormonal treatment, cut some pain scores more than usual care — but the differences were small and menstrual pain did not budge.
In a 230-patient randomised trial, self-guided app hypnotherapy produced a 33% pain response versus 48% with an in-person therapist and 22% with education — falling short of non-inferiority.
Magnesium is one of the most popular over-the-counter sleep aids, but a 2026 review of the randomised trials concluded the evidence does not support it as a routine treatment for insomnia.
In 709 children with high-risk B-cell ALL, swapping two chemotherapy cycles for the T-cell-engaging antibody lifted four-year event-free survival to 83% from 70% and sharply cut serious infections.
Nocturia is usually blamed on the prostate, but the commonest driver is the kidneys making too much urine overnight. In one trial, low-dose desmopressin trimmed nightly voids and bought about 40 extra minutes of sleep.
Observational studies robustly link the diet to lower mortality. The best randomised trial measured fewer heart attacks and strokes, and the strongest review finds the evidence for a survival benefit weak.
For dry, eczema-prone skin and for shielding hair from wash damage, coconut oil has real randomised evidence behind it — narrow, not miraculous, and not the same claim as being good for every skin type.
An unplanned cheat day can erase a week's calorie deficit and has no trial support. Structured diet breaks are different — one trial found they improved weight loss, though another found no body-composition edge.
For most children with gastroenteritis, the treatment is oral rehydration fluid at home — not a drip, and not stopping fluids. Here is what the evidence shows works, and the warning signs that mean a doctor now.
VITAL, with 25,871 adults, and D-Health, with 21,315, both tested vitamin D against placebo. Neither cut cancer incidence or cancer death — and one saw a signal pointing the wrong way.
SOLARIO randomised 500 patients after orthopaedic infection surgery to short or long systemic antibiotics. With a local-antibiotic carrier in place, the short course was noninferior and caused fewer side effects.
EPoS II randomised 10,799 people with high-risk adenomas to a first surveillance colonoscopy at five years or three. At an interim analysis the colorectal-cancer rates were near-identical.
Abaloparatide reliably raises bone density, so it seemed a natural candidate to help fractures knit. A randomised trial found no benefit — and healing numerically favoured placebo.
In HIMALAYA, 305 people with ALS took the RIPK1 inhibitor SAR443820 or placebo; function fell almost identically in both, and the sponsor is halting the drug in ALS.
In a 619-patient NEJM trial of treatment-resistant depression after 60, augmenting an antidepressant with aripiprazole improved well-being more than switching to bupropion. The margin was modest.
In a company-funded randomised trial, adults who lost weight then took pasteurised Akkermansia muciniphila regained 1.2 kg over 24 weeks versus 3.2 kg on placebo — a modest effect in 90 people.
A meta-regression found each extra weekly set added about 0.37% more growth, a graded but flattening curve. A separate trial found strength barely moved between one, three and five sets.
LITESPARK-022 cut the risk of recurrence by 28% when belzutifan was added to pembrolizumab after surgery. Survival was no different, and severe side effects nearly doubled.
Whole fruit and fruit juice behave oppositely for type 2 diabetes risk, and a trial that told newly diagnosed patients to eat less fruit found no benefit at all.
Iron does leach from a cast-iron pan into food, and randomised trials in iron-deficient populations found it raised haemoglobin. The effect depends on what you cook, and means little for people who are iron-replete.
Older meta-analyses linked lithium to fewer suicides. A randomised trial in 519 US veterans, stopped early for futility, found no such benefit when it was added to usual care.
The largest network meta-analysis of brain stimulation found several forms of TMS roughly triple the odds of responding, but they sit below ECT and rest on mostly small, uncertain trials.
In the trial that pitted them against each other, aerobic exercise matched sertraline on remission. But both sat only a little above a strikingly strong placebo, which is the part the headlines skip.
A meta-analysis of 11 trials put the change in a healthy man's resting testosterone from training at zero. Endurance work can lower it; losing body fat is the lever that reliably raises it.
Immunosenescence, the age-related decline of immunity, is real: the thymus shrinks and the T-cell repertoire narrows. The proven counter is not a supplement but vaccines engineered to force a response.
Autophagy is the cell's self-clearing recycling process, and it wanes with age. Fasting, spermidine and rapamycin switch it on in lab animals — whether that extends human life is unproven.
In the one randomised trial to test it, adults who used sunscreen daily showed no detectable increase in skin ageing over 4.5 years — 24% less than those who used it as they pleased.
In a 142-patient phase 3 trial, 37% reached complete remission on the antibody obinutuzumab versus 6% on tacrolimus at two years. A key kidney-function endpoint was not met, tempering the result.
Inviting people to a single colonoscopy cut 10-year colorectal cancer risk from 1.20% to 0.98%. The reduction in cancer deaths did not reach significance — and only 42% of those invited turned up.
In ESSENCE, the first 800 patients with biopsy-confirmed fatty-liver disease were analysed at week 72. Steatohepatitis resolved in 62.9% on semaglutide versus 34.3% on placebo — an interim look at an ongoing trial.
Two trials found low-dose colchicine cut cardiovascular events, and the FDA approved it for heart risk in 2023. Then the largest trial found nothing, leaving the question genuinely unsettled.
Pooled across 85 trials, exercise-based cardiac rehab cut later heart attacks and hospital admissions but barely moved death rates within a year — a real benefit, and a narrower one than the usual pitch.
A new analysis of the REDEFINE 1 trial reframes obesity treatment around reaching a normal BMI and waist size, not just percentage lost. The combination beat semaglutide alone on that measure.
Adding the immunotherapy to perioperative chemotherapy improved overall survival in resectable gastric and junction cancer — crossing the significance line the interim analysis had missed.
In a tightly controlled feeding trial, swapping high-GI for low-GI carbohydrate inside a healthy diet did not improve insulin sensitivity, cholesterol or blood pressure. The wider evidence rates the GI case as weak.
A US trial found ketamine at least as good as electroconvulsive therapy; a Swedish trial found ECT clearly better. The gap lies in whom they treated and how they scored success.
One week of five-hour nights cut young men's daytime testosterone by 10–15% in a controlled study. Yet CPAP for sleep apnoea leaves the hormone unmoved, pointing back at body weight.
Two randomised trials found a 500 ml glass of water before meals adds a modest extra loss — about 1.3 kg over 12 weeks in one. The effect is real but small, short-term, and no substitute for the diet itself.
Colic is intense crying in a healthy, well-fed baby that peaks in the first six weeks and eases by three months. Most remedies do little; the best evidence is modest and mainly for breastfed infants.
Most constipation in children has no underlying disease. Guidelines say the treatment that works is a laxative — clearing the backlog, then a maintenance dose for weeks — not simply adding fibre or fluid.
In the phase 3 THRIVE trial, veligrotug shrank bulging eyes in 70% of patients versus 5% on placebo. It is the first serious challenger to the only drug approved for the condition.
Digital adherence gadgets promise to fix forgotten doses. In a 53,480-person randomised trial, low-cost reminder devices did not raise adherence at all. Text reminders did more, but on short, self-reported trials.
In a 711-patient phase 2b trial, the myeloperoxidase inhibitor mitiperstat did not improve symptoms or walking distance in heart failure with preserved or mildly reduced ejection fraction.
Large randomised trials mostly find no cardiovascular benefit from ordinary fish-oil capsules. One high-dose prescription drug is the striking exception, and the case for brain protection is weak.
A child with a suspected concussion should be removed from play and not return the same day. But prolonged strict rest is no longer advised, and light activity within days can speed recovery.
The blood test known as NIPT is a strong screen for Down syndrome but not a diagnosis. In a general-risk population a positive result was correct about 81% of the time — and much less often for rarer conditions.
A large Cochrane review found fish-oil supplements cut early preterm birth substantially. The biggest single trial since found no effect at all — a genuine split the marketing skips over.
Guidelines now ask for an objective test before an asthma label is fixed to a child, and inhaled steroids remain the mainstay of control. Their benefit is real; so is a small, mostly temporary effect on growth.
The main randomised trial found babies who fed themselves were no slimmer, no more iron-deficient and no more likely to choke than spoon-fed babies — provided parents were coached to offer safe, iron-rich foods.
A single-centre randomised trial found that three cycles of intravenous immunoglobulin on top of high-dose steroids improved muscle disease faster and further — in just 44 patients, at one Dutch hospital.
Two large African trials gave anaemic pregnant women intravenous ferric carboxymaltose or oral iron. Neither found less anaemia near term, or heavier babies, with the infusion.
A closed-loop system links a glucose sensor to an insulin pump so software doses automatically. In the pivotal 6-month trial it raised time in target range by 11 points over a standard pump — a bounded gain, not a cure.
The DO-HEALTH sub-study is the first randomised evidence that a supplement can nudge DNA-methylation ageing clocks. The effect was tiny, and the parent trial found no benefit on health outcomes that matter.
The only long randomised trial of calorie restriction in non-obese adults improved cardiometabolic risk and modestly slowed one measure of biological ageing. Participants never hit the 25% target.
Started early and at high enough doses, zinc lozenges may cut a cold short by a day or two. But the evidence leans on a handful of small trials, formulation matters, and prevention claims are weaker.
A 4,153-woman trial found progesterone did not raise live births overall. The benefit concentrated in women who were bleeding and had had three or more previous miscarriages.
An individual-participant meta-analysis found metformin given in pregnancy did not lower the odds of gestational diabetes, though it modestly lengthened gestation and reduced preterm birth.
A 2024 meta-regression found strength gains barely track how close you stop to failure, while muscle growth rises the nearer you get. Two trials put the size gap close to zero.
In a phase 3 trial, tambotatug pelitecan extended median survival to 13.3 months versus 9.4 on standard chemotherapy — but the trial was open-label and run entirely in China.
Adding pembrolizumab plus maintenance olaparib to first-line chemotherapy improved progression-free survival — but pembrolizumab added without olaparib did nothing at all.
In PROPEL 3, children on once-daily infigratinib grew 1.74 cm/year faster than those on placebo over 52 weeks. It is a pill, not an injection — but the endpoint is growth speed, not long-term health.
A randomised trial found the Portfolio diet cut LDL cholesterol by about 13%, and a large cohort study links closer adherence to lower cardiovascular risk. Its authors' industry funding belongs in the record.
In the largest network meta-analysis, EMDR and trauma-focused CBT were the most effective treatments for adults with PTSD. The evidence is graded moderate-to-low, and the eye movements may not be why it works.
In the 500-man PRECISION trial, MRI-guided biopsy detected clinically significant cancer in 38% of men versus 26% with the old blind biopsy — and spared 28% a biopsy altogether.
Dietary spermidine tracks with markedly lower mortality in one population study. The first year-long randomised trial of a spermidine supplement found no effect on memory.
Small trials suggest curcumin can modestly reduce arthritis pain, sometimes on par with painkillers — but the evidence is thin, and turmeric supplements are linked to a rising number of serious liver injuries.
A 1,784-child randomised trial in Uganda found one-fifth and one-half doses of the 17DD vaccine matched the full dose for initial immunity — evidence for dose-sparing in young children when supplies run short.
AIROPLANE enrolled 1,818 newborns at 32 to 35 weeks across 26 Australian hospitals. Starting with 30% oxygen instead of room air left the same share still on respiratory support leaving the delivery room.
In the largest trial, combining fluoxetine with talking therapy helped most, and both worked better than placebo. A later network analysis found only fluoxetine, alone or with therapy, clearly beat placebo.
TRIC-I-HF randomised 360 older patients with severe tricuspid regurgitation. Adding transcatheter repair to medical therapy cut a composite of death or heart-failure hospitalisation through three years.
A 1,695-patient trial tested whether metoprolol helps people with COPD and no cardiovascular indication. It missed its primary endpoint — but, unlike an earlier trial, showed no signal of harm.
In QWINT-1, fixed-dose weekly efsitora cut HbA1c about as much as daily glargine in 795 insulin-naive adults — with a lower rate of significant hypoglycaemia and a quarter of the dose changes.
A twins trial found a vegan diet lowered LDL cholesterol, insulin and weight in eight weeks. The same pattern comes with real gaps — vitamin B12 must be supplemented, and iron stores tend to run lower.
Alpha-blockers ease symptoms within weeks; 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors shrink the gland over months. In a 3,047-man trial, combining them cut progression risk by 66%. Newer office procedures spare sexual function.
Marketed as a natural weight-loss drug, berberine rests on small, mostly low-quality trials showing modest effects on blood sugar and cholesterol — with no weight-loss evidence to match the hype.
In a 258-patient phase 3 trial, the oral drug reduced transfusion needs in about 30% of adults with transfusion-dependent thalassaemia, versus 13% on placebo.
A smartphone app delivering CBT cut tinnitus-related distress about 20 points more than a sham app in 60 adults, and the effect held for two months. The trial was small and industry-funded.
Randomised trials show acute care delivered at home costs less, uses fewer tests and readmits fewer patients — while making little or no difference to whether they survive.
In an 81-child trial, vosoritide raised annualised growth velocity by 2.33 cm a year against placebo in hypochondroplasia, which has no targeted treatment. The endpoint is growth speed, not final height.
Two trials of oveporexton, an orexin receptor agonist for narcolepsy type 1, met their wakefulness endpoint and cut cataplexy sharply. Side effects were near-universal.
In the LAIS trial, more patients given intravenous loberamisal recovered with little or no disability at 90 days — a rare positive result in a field littered with failed neuroprotectants.
Head-to-head randomised trials find low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets produce similar weight loss over a year or two. The differences that survive are in blood lipids and glycemic control, not the scale.
Enuresis alarms have the best evidence for a lasting cure, working in about two-thirds of children who use them. Desmopressin acts faster but the wetting tends to return when it stops.
The ORBEX trial gave OM-85 or placebo to 822 young children at high risk of asthma. Wheezing lower-respiratory illnesses were, if anything, slightly more common on the drug.
Self-testing and self-managing warfarin cut clot events by roughly 40%, and self-management also lowered deaths — one of the few at-home tests with randomised evidence of real benefit.
In the SKYLARK trial, a 14-day course improved depression scores faster than placebo. The effect was real but modest, and the label carries a driving-impairment warning.
Two controlled-feeding trials found a diet rich in fruit, vegetables and low-fat dairy lowered blood pressure, most in people who already had hypertension, and more still when sodium was cut.
Tozorakimab, which blocks interleukin-33, lowered the rate of moderate or severe COPD exacerbations by about a third against placebo, without an eosinophil requirement to qualify.
In LIBERTY 1 and 2, more than 70% of women with fibroid-related heavy bleeding responded to the once-daily pill, versus under 20% on placebo. The label caps use at 24 months over bone loss.
A postpartum smoking programme and a safe-sleep video series each failed the question they were designed to answer. What they reported next is where the interpretation gets difficult.
The first randomised trial to report interval cancers found AI non-inferior to double reading, with higher sensitivity at equal specificity. Across three European programmes the extra detection is about one per 1000.
One found doctors stopped using it as shifts got busier. The other, in 9,691 Kenyan patients, found it safe but no better than the electronic record alone. Neither supports deployment.
Resistance training in adults averaging 75 with vascular cognitive impairment, and aerobic exercise in adolescents. Both beat their control, and both controls were active rather than nothing.
OSPREY implanted every participant, then randomly decided whose device was switched on. That design answers a question most implant studies leave open, and it has limits the authors state plainly.
AD109 cut the apnoea-hypopnoea index by four events an hour more than placebo over 26 weeks. It did not improve fatigue, and one in five participants stopped because of side effects.
Spain's PREDIMED trial is the strongest randomised evidence that a dietary pattern lowers cardiovascular events. In 2018 its authors withdrew it over flawed randomisation and reissued corrected results.
An arthritis antibody and a diabetes drug were given to depressed patients in 2026 trials. Both were designed to probe a mechanism rather than prove a treatment, and reading them as results would be a mistake.
Two 2026 trials point the same direction: the hardware in depression treatment is mature, and the remaining gains are in precision and in what the treatment costs the patient's memory.
The NAD+ precursors sold to slow ageing reliably raise NAD+ and are well tolerated. What the randomised trials do not show is a benefit to muscle, metabolism or how old you are.
A trial in India found calling tuberculosis survivors was non-inferior to visiting them, on a combined measure. Split into survivors and their contacts, the picture reverses for the group at highest risk.
A six-month regimen for drug-resistant tuberculosis matched the standard of care in South Africa. Four days of antibiotics matched eight in African children hospitalised with severe pneumonia.
4CMenB had shown promise against gonorrhoea in observational data. Randomised, its efficacy was minus 0.5%. In the same field, a once-weekly oral HIV regimen met non-inferiority at 48 weeks.
Zenagamtide was tested as a weekly injection and a daily pill in type 2 diabetes. Both cut HbA1c against placebo at 36 weeks, and the oral version's side effects rose steeply with dose.
Three randomised trials found routine finger-prick testing produced no clinically meaningful change in long-term blood sugar for people whose type 2 diabetes is managed without insulin.
Satralizumab reduced eye-bulging and inflammation in thyroid eye disease across the twin SatraGO phase 3 trials, but the primary proptosis endpoint reached statistical significance in only one of them.
Tranexamic acid cut postpartum haemorrhage in placenta praevia. Dapagliflozin nearly halved acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery. The effect sizes are very different, and so is how much to trust them.
Substantial, sustained weight loss can return blood sugar to the normal range without drugs in some people diagnosed recently. It is real, it is not a cure, and it fades as the weight comes back.
MariTide antagonises the GIP receptor that tirzepatide switches on, yet in 592 adults it drove 12–16% weight loss over a year — and it is dosed once a month, not once a week.
EECOH-1 randomised 211 adults and found the weekly GLP-1 cut HbA1c up to 1.56 points more than placebo over 24 weeks — competitive numbers from a short, single-country, company-run trial.
In a 12-person crossover trial, blue-enriched daytime light with reduced evening blue did not cut time spent awake at night, though it nudged a brainwave marker of sleep.
SERENA-6 changed therapy the moment a resistance mutation appeared in the blood, not when tumours grew. It nearly doubled time to progression — and won camizestrant FDA approval in 2026.
A German trial in 1,793 students found a cognitive-behavioural programme reduced gaming and internet-use disorder symptoms only in high-risk adolescents — not across the whole classroom.
In 216 patients with chronic patellofemoral pain across 10 Korean hospitals, an 8-week digital therapeutic beat education and exercise instruction on pain — by 12.5 mm on a 100 mm scale.
A small double-blind trial found a single 5.5 mg/kg dose lifted sprint power for hours, alongside higher noradrenaline and lower perceived effort — but it was 12 people, mostly men.
In the 172-patient PARADIGM trial, azacitidine plus venetoclax more than doubled median event-free survival versus induction chemotherapy — but it was a phase 2 study not powered for overall survival.
In the Ket-BD trial, four IV ketamine infusions over two weeks lowered depression scores more than an active placebo, with no manic switches observed in 63 analysed patients.
In the Novartis-funded VICTORION-Challenge trial, twice-yearly inclisiran cut LDL 56.3% at day 150 against 15.4% for daily bempedoic acid — an open-label comparison of a surrogate marker, not outcomes.
In the 571-woman ECLIPSE trial, the hormonal coil improved quality-of-life scores more than standard tablets over two years, and far more women stuck with it. A Cochrane review reaches the same conclusion.
In 69 people across normal weight, overweight and type 2 diabetes, a stevia drink behaved like water — no shift in glucose, insulin, gut hormones, appetite or how much they ate next.
Intensive family-based behavioural programmes produce small, real cuts in children's BMI; the newer weight-loss drugs produce much larger ones, but the weight returns when they stop.
In a randomised trial of 3,102 bypass patients across seven countries, all-cause mortality was near-identical between bilateral and single internal thoracic artery grafting.
A 2,234-patient UK trial gave people with unexplained syncope a 14-day ECG monitor or usual care. A year on, fainting episodes were no fewer — a caution against confusing better detection with better outcomes.
TARGET-CTCA randomised 3,170 emergency patients whose troponin had cleared them of a heart attack. Outpatient CT angiography-guided care matched standard care on later infarction or cardiac death.
In a 40-person crossover trial, 10 mg and 20 mg of edible THC degraded lane-keeping while whole-blood THC peaked at 1.6 and 3.4 ng/mL — near or under the thresholds police enforce.
STAREE randomised 9,971 Australians aged 70 and over to atorvastatin or placebo. Cardiovascular events fell by 30%. Death, dementia and persistent disability, taken together, did not move.
In 264 patients in China, the device maker's trial reported clinical worsening in 25.7% versus 51.5% on medical therapy alone (HR 0.49) — but no sham procedure blinded patients.
Dense tissue raises breast-cancer risk and hides cancers on a mammogram. US facilities must now tell patients — but the evidence on what to do next is a real trade-off: more cancers found, more false alarms.
The phase 3 VALOR trial met its primary endpoint at the higher dose of the oral TYK2-JAK1 inhibitor, with more serious infections — a benefit and a safety signal that arrive together.
A 293-woman Dutch trial found more women reported improvement at 12 months with perioperative oestriol cream than placebo. Anatomical success, surgical success and reintervention were unchanged.
SleepCARE randomised 219 Australian women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer to CBT-I, bright light therapy, both, or sleep hygiene. Only CBT-I moved insomnia — and nothing moved fatigue.
Five-year follow-up of a Chinese randomised trial shows paclitaxel–cisplatin–capecitabine before chemoradiotherapy lifted failure-free survival from 63% to 78% in high-risk disease — at the cost of more toxicity.
In HERIZON-GEA-01, zanidatamab plus chemotherapy raised median progression-free survival to 12.4 months from 8.1 with trastuzumab. A clear survival gain came only when tislelizumab was added.
The glucagon and GLP-1 dual agonist, already approved in China, cut bodyweight 18.1% at 16 mg and 15.6% at 10 mg over 32 weeks versus 0.9% on placebo in a US phase 2 trial.
A meta-analysis of 116 randomised trials found weight, waist and body fat falling steadily up to 300 minutes a week. In one 24-week trial, 48% of participants compensated by about 308 kcal a day.
Rezpegaldesleukin works by expanding the immune system's regulatory T cells rather than blocking an inflammatory signal — a new mechanism for atopic dermatitis, tested so far only in a phase 2b study.
In the phase 3 Launch-HTN trial, adults already on two to five drugs fell 9.1 mm Hg further on lorundrostat than placebo — the second aldosterone-synthase inhibitor to post positive data after baxdrostat.
ITACS randomised 955 anaemic adults to intravenous iron or placebo before elective cardiac surgery. Fewer patients needed a transfusion, but the primary benefit was a median of one day alive and at home.
ACT-South Asia randomised 1,847 patients in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Treatment failed in 5.1% of each group — no benefit from the second antibiotic, and a point in favour of stewardship.
A cluster-randomised trial in Cúcuta coated water containers in 13,803 homes. Dengue incidence fell to 337 per 100,000 versus 528 in control clusters, at about US$2 per household a year.
RACER-Knee masked patients with sham incisions and found a Forgotten Joint Score difference of −1.5 points at 12 months (P=0.62) — while the robotic operation cost more.
In one study of 62,685 women, iron deficiency prevalence ranged from 3% to 15% depending on the ferritin threshold. On treatment, a recent trial found alternate-day iron caused fewer side effects than daily dosing.
Two randomised trials tested whether thyroid-hormone tablets help women who carry thyroid antibodies but have normal thyroid function and a history of miscarriage or infertility. Live-birth rates did not move.
Observational studies had linked proton pump inhibitors to fractures, dementia, kidney disease and more. A randomised trial collected all of those outcomes and found only enteric infections.
The TAME trial randomised 276 adults with diagnosed anxiety disorders to mindfulness-based stress reduction or escitalopram. The difference on the primary measure was 0.07 points, inside the noninferiority margin.
FIMPACT enrolled 210 people, assigned them to real surgery, fake surgery or exercise, and followed them to 2023. The gap between operated and pretend-operated groups was 1.5 points on a 100-point scale.
A once-daily experimental pill beat placebo in a phase 3 trial and is under regulatory review — yet no study has tested its claimed edge over older dopamine agonists head-to-head.
Five-fraction SBRT improved several quality-of-life measures but was not superior to longer IMRT for prostate cancer. Three-year disease-free survival was 88.6% with SBRT and 92.1% with IMRT.
OPAL randomised 347 people in Australian primary care and emergency departments. At six weeks the opioid group's mean pain score was slightly worse than the placebo group's.
Most women have a recurrence within a year of standard treatment. A 2025 trial stopped early once treating a woman alone proved inferior to treating her and her male partner together.
The radioligand cut the risk of radiographic progression or death by 28% when added to standard therapy in a phase 3 trial — a real but incremental gain, bought with more side-effects.
The first randomised trial to pit surgery against the natural course of big-toe arthritis found fusion cut walking pain to 1.3 on a 10-point scale at one year, versus 5.7 with watchful waiting.
Weekly fluconazole kept most women free of thrush during treatment, yet by 12 months, six months after stopping, the advantage had narrowed sharply. A newer drug shows more durable suppression.
A 2026 meta-analysis pooled every randomised human trial of the gut-derived supplement for muscle health. Only one outcome, from two trials, could be combined — and it missed significance.
In the 240-woman ALTAR trial, methenamine hippurate was non-inferior to standard low-dose antibiotic prophylaxis over a year. Most other non-antibiotic prevention strategies still rest on weak evidence.
Pooling the trials, one- and two-dose HPV schedules produced lower antibody titres than three doses but still cut persistent infection — with the usual caveat about surrogate endpoints.
GLORY-2 randomised 461 Chinese adults with obesity to a weekly GLP-1/glucagon dual agonist or placebo; weight fell 16.65% versus 1.50% at 60 weeks, alongside high rates of nausea and vomiting.
Dazukibart eased skin and muscle disease within weeks and held up for nearly two years — but the trials were tiny, manufacturer-run, and the makers say a phase 3 is needed to confirm it.
A prespecified analysis of the ATTRibute-CM trial found the TTR-stabilising pill slowed the decline in how patients rated their own health, with a number-needed-to-treat of six to keep one 'not worse'.
In the phase 3 TORCH trial, following transarterial chemoembolisation with thermal ablation more than doubled median progression-free survival, to 17.7 months from 7.3, in unresectable liver-confined cancer.
Patients in remission who stayed on the JAK inhibitor through a second year flared far less than those switched to placebo — 7.4% versus 59.5% — in an extension of the SELECT-GCA trial.
The final HARMONi-A analysis reports a 2.7-month gain in median overall survival — 16.8 versus 14.1 months — for the PD-1/VEGF bispecific added to chemotherapy in a China-only phase 3 trial.
A cluster-randomised trial in Saponé found seasonal chemoprevention given to children up to age 10 nearly halved parasite carriage in 5-to-9-year-olds, though supervised delivery brought no clear gain under age five.
In KEYNOTE-B15/EV-304, perioperative enfortumab vedotin plus pembrolizumab lifted two-year event-free survival to 79.4% from 66.2% against standard cisplatin-based chemotherapy in patients fit for it.
In the first humanitarian trial of its kind, 400 refugees and hosts were randomised. AUDIT scores fell 4.6 points more with screening and brief intervention than with usual care at six months.
The SMART trial tested clesrovimab against palivizumab in premature and heart- and lung-affected infants. It was built to show safety, not to prove one prevents more RSV than the other.
In the phase 3 CORALreef AddOn head-to-head, enlicitide dropped LDL cholesterol 64.6% at day 56 — far past ezetimibe, bempedoic acid, or the two combined.
A randomised-withdrawal trial showed the antibody-lowering drug kept CIDP patients in remission. A 2026 extension reports lasting benefit, but with no placebo group to measure it against.
The targeted combination more than tripled progression-free survival versus placebo in iodine-refractory disease — but overall survival is not yet significant and the trial was mostly Asian.
Petrelintide, a long-acting amylin analogue given without a GLP-1 drug, reduced bodyweight by up to 8.6% at 16 weeks across two small phase 1 trials and was well tolerated. The finding is early.
In the phase 3 BRUIN CLL-322 trial, adding pirtobrutinib to a fixed course of venetoclax and rituximab raised 24-month progression-free survival to 87% from 72% in previously treated disease.
Adding the antipsychotic to an antidepressant beat placebo in two phase 3 trials. But the dose that worked in one failed in the other — a wrinkle worth carrying into the prescription.
In 328 patients with third-generation cephalosporin-resistant gut bacteria in the blood, an old, narrow-spectrum antibiotic met its non-inferiority mark, offering a way to spare carbapenems.
In the head-to-head OVERLORD-MS trial, 92.2% on rituximab and 94.8% on ocrelizumab had no new MRI lesions from months 6 to 24, meeting the prespecified bar for noninferiority.
In DigiSep, adding metagenomic sequencing to standard cultures did not improve the main 28-day outcome, though ventilation time and shock resolution were shorter in exploratory analyses.
REMEASURE randomised 73 patients to Kono-S anastomosis or mesenteric resection after ileocolic surgery for Crohn's disease; endoscopic recurrence at six months was 33% versus 32%.
In ATTRACTION, tirofiban given after successful thrombectomy left more stroke patients independent at 90 days than placebo, though symptomatic brain bleeds trended higher and were not significantly different.
A meta-analysis of 27 randomised trials found that disclosing a polygenic risk score did not meaningfully shift diet, screening uptake, medication use, anxiety or cholesterol.
A month-long trial that blocked mobile internet improved mental health and attention, and a one-week social-media break lifted wellbeing. The wider literature is thinner.
In a 500-patient ICU trial across seven countries, bicarbonate infusions for metabolic acidosis in patients on vasopressors did not lower major kidney events or death at 30 days.
Final ALIGN results show the endothelin blocker preserved kidney function over 2.5 years in a rare kidney disease, yet the difference at week 136 just missed statistical significance (p=0.057).
In a UK trial of 1,956 critically ill adults, neither carbocisteine nor nebulised hypertonic saline shortened time on a ventilator, and each was tied to a specific harm.
A double-blind trial found a lidocaine paracervical block lowered pain during IUD placement, most in women who had never given birth. A separate meta-analysis found the benefit hinges on the drug and route.
In TRANSCEND-T2D-1, the triple-hormone agonist cut HbA1c up to 1.12 points beyond placebo over 40 weeks and trimmed bodyweight 15.3% at the top dose in early type 2 diabetes.
In the FIND-CKD trial, non-diabetic patients on finerenone lost kidney function at 3.3 versus 4.0 ml/min/1.73 m² a year — a small edge that extends a diabetes drug to a new group.
In a 122-patient South African proof-of-concept study, a four-month all-oral combination of quabodepistat, delamanid and bedaquiline cleared TB from sputum as often as the six-month standard.
In the phase 3 GCAptAIN trial the interleukin-17A blocker did not significantly beat placebo for sustained remission at one year, leaving the IL-6 inhibitor tocilizumab as the proven steroid-sparing option.
In the MajesTEC-9 trial, the bispecific antibody teclistamab cut the risk of progression or death by 71% against standard three- and two-drug regimens. Serious infections were common.
The anti-alpha-synuclein antibody did not significantly delay motor progression in the phase 2b PADOVA study, though a non-significant trend and secondary signals keep a phase 3 trial alive.
Two GSK-funded phase 3 trials found roughly 20% of patients on bepirovirsen reached a functional cure at 72 weeks versus none on placebo — alongside more adverse events and liver-enzyme rises.
In the phase 3 LIBRETTO-432 trial, adjuvant selpercatinib raised two-year event-free survival to 92% from 61% in resected stage II-IIIA RET fusion-positive lung cancer. The trial was small and survival is unproven.
In the phase 3 DRAGON-01 trial, delivering paclitaxel directly into the abdominal cavity on top of standard chemotherapy raised median survival to 19.4 months from 13.9 in gastric cancer with peritoneal spread.
Two large trials of the anti-ST2 antibody gave discordant results: a modest signal in the phase 2b study, and a missed primary endpoint for the same dose in the confirmatory phase 3.
In the phase 3 Integral-1 trial, cefepime plus the new β-lactamase blocker nacubactam cured 82% of complicated urinary infections versus 61% for imipenem, offering a way to spare carbapenems.
In VERITAC-2 the oral degrader more than doubled progression-free survival over fulvestrant in patients with an ESR1 mutation — 5.0 months versus 2.1 — but not in the trial as a whole.
The PERTH trial is a 60-person pilot, and its outcome was urinary chemistry rather than health. Within those limits it answered a question people keep asking.
PRoMPT BOLUS, a 9041-child trial across 47 emergency departments, found kidney-injury events at 30 days in 3.4% on balanced fluid and 3.0% on saline (P=0.85) — no meaningful difference.
Cemdisiran, a gene-silencing drug given under the skin once every three months, cut daily-living scores more than placebo in antibody-positive generalised myasthenia gravis, a rare complement-driven disease.
Two doses of the long-acting antibody L9LS protected under-fives in a high-transmission area, but researchers say a higher dose is likely needed for stronger cover.
In an industry-funded, open-label trial of 3,048 patients with heart disease, targeting LDL below 55 rather than 70 mg/dL lowered a composite of cardiovascular events over three years.
In 1,362 Shanghai dialysis patients followed for over three years, hemoadsorption plus haemodialysis lowered all-cause mortality versus dialysis alone — a borderline result from an open-label trial.
Relacorilant kept blood pressure under control when patients who had responded were kept on it rather than switched to placebo. The pivotal trial randomised just 62 people.
In the phase 3 ATOMIC trial, atezolizumab on top of standard FOLFOX chemotherapy raised three-year disease-free survival to 86.3% from 76.2% after surgery for stage III dMMR colon cancer.
In the phase 3 PATCH trial, oestrogen skin patches were non-inferior to LHRH injections for three-year metastasis-free survival, with fewer hot flushes but more breast swelling.
In a single-centre trial of 100 patients with decompensated cirrhosis, six months of atorvastatin cut recurrent complications from 72% to 36% — a striking but preliminary result needing larger confirmation.
The AVENIR trial met its resistance endpoint in the gut but not the nose: giving the antibiotic to under-fives lifted macrolide resistance 16% above placebo communities.
OCULUS was halted at interim analysis: continuing a GLP-1 or GIP agonist before endoscopy left 25.0% of patients with clinically significant retained stomach contents, versus 3.1% who held one dose.
For years the disorder was treated off-label. A phase 3 randomised-withdrawal trial won lower-sodium oxybate the first US approval for it — but its design measures what is lost on stopping.
In a Chinese phase 2–3 trial, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, lenvatinib and a PD-1 antibody before liver surgery lifted median event-free survival to 18.0 months from 8.7. The survival signal was not yet conclusive.
In the open-label extension of the VIVID programme, remission rates stayed high at 104 weeks — but no placebo group ran alongside, so durability is described, not proven, against nature.
In the COSPIRIT-JIA trial, most children with two stubborn forms of juvenile idiopathic arthritis responded to ixekizumab by week 16 — but the main result had no control group.
In the ALLEGORY trial, 76.7% of patients with active SLE reached the SRI-4 response at 52 weeks on the B-cell–depleting antibody versus 53.5% on placebo, extending a drug already cleared for lupus nephritis.
A three-year update of RATIONALE-309 found tislelizumab plus chemotherapy lengthened median progression-free survival to 9.6 months from 7.4. The overall-survival gain was not statistically significant on its own.
An 876-participant double-blind trial across 24 Chinese fertility centres nearly doubled serum 25-OHD in women with PCOS. Live births were 52.0% against 50.2% on placebo.
A double-blind trial randomised 750 women with polycystic ovary syndrome to one drug or the other. Letrozole produced more live births and more ovulation — and is now the guideline's first choice for fertility.
In KEYNOTE-905/EV-303, adding enfortumab vedotin and pembrolizumab to surgery lifted two-year event-free survival to 74.7% from 39.4%. Serious side effects were common.
SCREESCO randomised Swedish 60-year-olds to colonoscopy, stool testing, or nothing. After a median 4.8 years, overall cancer incidence barely moved; the stage distribution did.
In the LATITUDE trial, monthly cabotegravir–rilpivirine injections cut regimen failure to 22.8% from 41.2% on oral therapy among people with a history of missed doses, prompting an early stop.
A four-arm randomised trial in 112 young women tested whether high-intensity circuit training and sleep-health counselling add up. On objective measures they did — by minutes.
Efimosfermin, an FGF21 analogue given every four weeks, was well tolerated over 24 weeks in 84 patients with fatty-liver disease — but this trial was designed to test safety, not whether it heals the liver.
A 250-person randomised trial paired a wearable tracker with just-in-time energy-management messages. Post-exertional malaise fell in both arms, and the difference between them was trivial.
A 1,151-person Hong Kong trial used trained lay counsellors, not clinicians, and no internet. The effect sizes are small, and the authors are explicit that they do not know whether it travels.
The LIDA trial tested whether romosozumab's bone-building window closes early enough to shorten treatment. It met non-inferiority on hip bone density — at a single centre, with 50 participants, over one year.
The PROP OA trial found a 3.39-point gain on a 100-point score at six months. The effect on pain was larger than the effect overall, and both diminished by twelve months.
In a 618-person randomized trial, 27.8% of the intervention group met the sustained-remission endpoint at 24 months against 21.2% of comparators. The confidence interval nearly touches no effect.
In the phase 3 ASCENT-04 trial, sacituzumab govitecan with pembrolizumab lifted median progression-free survival to 11.2 months from 7.8 in PD-L1-positive disease. Survival data are immature.
Household cure rates were 88.5 percent with permethrin against 71.8 percent with ivermectin. The trial set out to show ivermectin was non-inferior and found the opposite.
Germany's DINKS trial is one of the largest randomised tests of a reimbursable digital therapeutic. The effect is big, the comparator is usual care alone, and the sponsor made the app.
The headline finding is noninferiority. The more useful finding is what the shared denominator was — and how wide a gap the trial was designed to tolerate.
WISDOM randomised 28,372 women to annual mammography or a risk-tailored schedule. The risk-based arm met its non-inferiority mark for advanced cancers — with caveats about who enrolled.
A 240-woman randomised trial compared three months of hatha yoga with a time-matched conditioning programme. On every sleep measure, the two groups moved together.
An 18,476-person phase 3 trial and a small human challenge study landed the same day. Both favour the mRNA vaccine against influenza A; neither settles what it does against influenza B.
VESALIUS-CV randomised 12,257 patients with atherosclerosis or diabetes but no prior MI or stroke. Evolocumab reduced the three-point event rate from 8.0% to 6.2% over a median 4.6 years.
PISCES randomised 1,228 haemodialysis patients in Canada and Australia. The headline hazard ratio of 0.57 counts every event, not just the first — and that choice explains part of the gap.
The 162 mg group had 14.1% preterm or severe preeclampsia against 17.1% on 81 mg — a difference the trial could not distinguish from chance. Eight placental abruptions occurred on the higher dose and none on the lower.
The trial was designed to test non-inferiority against traditional dietary advice. It found superiority instead, with 62% versus 42% achieving a clinical response over six weeks.
In 311 adults aged 55 to 95, remission rates were 40% and 51% in the two intervention arms at one year, against 16% for online patient education. Adding human support helped a little.
In 270 patients whose voices persisted despite antipsychotics, the therapy beat matched clinical contact on hallucination severity by 2.26 points — significant, with a Cohen's d of 0.27.
The final analysis of a 28,130-child trial found roughly 78% efficacy over more than four years, evidence that underpins WHO's push to roll the conjugate vaccine out in endemic countries.