Bridged treatment comparisons: an illustrative application in HIV treatment

Direct head-to-head comparisons of antiretroviral therapy regimens are not always feasible through trial designs sharing a common comparator arm, but no formal methodology existed for combining data across trials to make these bridged treatment comparisons in HIV research.

Target RWE researchers and UNC collaborators applied the data fusion estimator to an HIV treatment comparison, using shared trial arms from ACTG 175 and ACTG 320 to estimate the indirect effect of triple versus mono antiretroviral therapy.

Demonstrating the bridged treatment comparison estimator in an HIV treatment application validates the fusion methodology in a real clinical context and provides evidence that this approach can generate credible comparative effectiveness evidence from existing trial data.

Bridged HIV treatment comparison application demonstrating fusion estimator real-world validity, Fusion design application supporting evidence generation for HIV and other therapeutic areas without new trial data