Patients' preference in indomethacin trials: an overview.

Meta-analysis was used to study patients' preference in 37 crossover trials that compared indomethacin with newer non-steroidal, antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). 3 reports did not present numerical data. Patients who withdrew from the trial were included in the analysis. The difference between the proportion of patients who preferred the new drug and the proportion who preferred indomethacin (the therapeutic gain) was 14%. After exclusion of 2 unreliable studies the therapeutic gain was only 7%, and when 4 preliminary reports were also ignored, the gain was 5% (95% confidence interval 0 to 10%). In two additional analyses in which the 2 outlying results were excluded, the gain was also 5%. The findings do not support the trend to replace indomethacin with newer NSAIDs.