Aim: Many hepatitis C virus regimens are unlikely to be compared head to head. In more difficult to treat populations where there is no standard of care, trials are single arm. We describe a flexible meta-analysis platform in this setting.
Methods: Our meta-analysis is literature based. We illustrate our methodology and show how inference can be extended to single-arm trials.
Results: As an example, in the single arm setting, a regimen with response rates of 84, 72 and 54% in genotype 1a across treatment naive, previous partial responders and previous null responders, respectively, would have 95% probability of superiority to IFN-α + RBV + TPV.
Conclusion: This is a rigorous approach to comparative effectiveness that accounts for varying patient populations and plans for the incorporation of emerging treatments.
Keywords: Bayesian hierarchical model; boceprevir; comparative effectiveness; hepatitis C; meta-analysis; sustained virologic response; telaprevir.