Calcium channel blockers for primary Raynaud's phenomenon: a meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: To determine the efficacy of calcium channel blockers (CCBs) for primary Raynaud's phenomenon (RP). Primary outcomes were frequency and severity of RP attacks. METHODS: A meta-analysis was conducted using primary data sources: Medline, Current Contents and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register. Inclusion criteria were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of >2 days' duration with <35% dropouts. Eighteen of 31 trials were eligible for inclusion [13 nifedipine vs placebo; five other CCBs vs placebo (n = 361)]. The main reasons for trial exclusion were: subset data (primary RP) not provided (n = 10); data published more than once (n = 1); lack of control group (n = 1); and lack of randomization (n = 1). Data were abstracted independently and a weighted mean difference (WMD) was calculated for the outcomes. RESULTS: The WMD (95% confidence interval) of all CCBs vs placebo for reduction in the frequency of attacks (n = 17) over 1 week was -5.00 (-9.02, -0.99) (P = 0.01) or -2.80 (-3.90, -1.70) when heterogeneity was considered, and -6.05 (-11.19,-0.19) (P = 0.04) for nifedipine alone (n = 10). The WMD of all CCBs vs placebo (n = 8) for reduction in severity of attacks (assessed with a 10-cm visual analogue scale) was -1.39 (-2.20, -0.58) (P = 0.0007) and -1.81 (-3.08, -0.54) (P = 0.005) for nifedipine alone (n = 5). CONCLUSIONS: Several small RCTs of CCBs for primary RP have been conducted and have yielded clinical improvement in the frequency and severity of ischaemic attacks. Most trials were crossover trials in which order effect was not studied; this may have introduced bias. The effect size may have been small because of low dosing in studies. The efficacy of CCBs for reducing severity and frequency of ischaemic attacks in primary RP is small (average of 2.8 to 5.0 fewer attacks per week and a 33% reduction in severity).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.019 | 0.027 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.020 | 0.058 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".