ArticleMilitary Medical Research2025
Target trial emulation in oncology: current use and future directions.
Article in Military Medical Research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Epigenetic plasticity and chemoresistance in cancer: mechanisms, biomarkers, and translational opportunities for real-world evidence.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Target trial emulation (TTE) has demonstrated popularity because of its ability to improve the reliability of causal inference from observational data. Nevertheless, knowledge about the current use, potential challenges, and insights of target trials in oncology is scarce. A total of 90 TTE studies in cancer areas were identified through systematic reviews in PubMed and Embase. Among the 54 applications in cancer treatment, registry databases (44.4%) and overall survival (OS, 63.0%) were predominantly used as data sources and primary endpoints, respectively. Approximately 30 (55.6%) of the included TTE cases were associated with immortal time bias, and 21 (38.9%) were associated with prevalent user bias. Among the 21 trials from 13 studies that aimed to calibrate the results from preexisting randomized controlled trials (RCTs), only 42.9% met both statistical agreement and estimate agreement. The availability of fit-for-purpose data sources and uncertainty about result concordance were the main hurdles limiting the quantity and quality of TTE in oncology areas. Promoting regulatory acceptance by initiating special projects could be crucial for the expanded application of real-world data (RWD) using TTE. Potential solutions, such as the integration of electronic medical records at the regional or country level, linkage with insurance claims databases, the modernization of eligibility criteria, the use of OS as the primary endpoint, and other best practices, were recommended for improving the feasibility and quality of oncology TTE. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40779-026-00685-9.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.