Comparison of the clinical effectiveness of treatments for aromatase inhibitor-induced arthralgia in breast cancer patients: a protocol for a systematic review and network meta-analysis.
INTRODUCTION
Aromatase inhibitor-induced arthralgia (AIA) is a major adverse event of aromatase inhibitors (AIs) and leads to premature discontinuation of AI therapy in breast cancer patients. The objective of this protocol for a systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA) is to provide the methodology to compare the change in pain intensity between different AIA treatments and demonstrate the rank probabilities for different treatments by combining all available direct and indirect evidence.


METHODS AND ANALYSIS
PubMed, the Cochrane Controlled Register of Trials (CENTRAL), EMBASE, Web of Science and ClinicalTrials.gov will be searched to identify publications in English from inception to November 2019. We will include randomised controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the effects of different treatments for AIA in postmenopausal women with stage 0-III hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. The primary endpoints will be the change in patient-reported pain intensity from baseline to post-treatment. The number of adverse events will be presented as a secondary outcome.Both pairwise meta-analysis and NMA with the Frequentist approach will be conducted. We will demonstrate summary estimates with forest plots in meta-analysis and direct and mixed evidence with a ranking of the treatments as the P-score in NMA. The revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomised trials will be used to assess the methodological quality within individual RCTs. The quality of evidence will be assessed.


ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION
As this review does not involve individual patients, ethical approval is not required. The results of this systematic review and NMA will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. This review will provide valuable information on AIA therapeutic options for clinicians, health practitioners and breast cancer survivors.


PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER
CRD42019136967.
['Bae|Kyeore|K|0000-0002-8596-8293', 'Song|Si Yeon|SY|']
D047072:Aromatase Inhibitors D018771:Arthralgia D001943:Breast Neoplasms D005260:Female D006801:Humans D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic D000071076:Network Meta-Analysis D000078202:Systematic Reviews as Topic D016896:Treatment Outcome
arthralgia network meta-analysis aromatase inhibitor breast tumours pain management