Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #steroidsinRA
Most recents (1)
One of the most upvoted comments on my #ACR21 plenary was "Why are we still doing observational studies on risks of #steroidsinRA? Given unavoidable confounding, shouldn't we just focus on clinical trials?" I responded in-platform, but thought the topic called for a🧵also. 1/
First of all, clinical trials on this topic are very important, and, when well-designed, will almost always yield results more reliable than those of observational studies when powered to look at common, short-term steroid side effects. 2/
However, many steroid-associated AEs are low-prevalence & require long-term followup to detect. MACE, major fractures, sepsis, VTE, etc. It would be very difficult to power an RCT to reliably assess effect of steroid use (esp. low-dose) on these outcomes. 3/
