ReviewJournal of internal medicine2026
Anti-inflammatory agents in atherosclerosis-and a need for reform: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Review in Journal of internal medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
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Abstract
Since 1858, human atherosclerotic plaques have been shown to contain immune cells. But are these cells suitable therapeutic targets? Dozens of clinical trials of anti-inflammatory agents other than colchicine have been performed in patients with clinically evident atherosclerosis. None of these trials led any regulatory body in any jurisdiction to allow a cardiovascular indication for any of these agents. This discouraging work provides a background to evaluate new data on colchicine. In 2024-2025, new clinical trials of colchicine in patients with atherosclerosis showed benefit, no benefit, or harm. In 2025-2026, over a dozen meta-analyses so far have appeared, drawing on ∼34 trials, but do not agree with each other. One of these meta-analyses, Xie et al.'s in the Journal of Internal Medicine, provides a compelling graphical display of the pre-specified primary outcomes of six long-term clinical trials as they were published over time. The pattern of early positive trials, then newer negative (null) trials, suggests regression to the truth. Jeon and Cho et al.'s population-wide study in the Journal of Internal Medicine of patients with Type 2 diabetes and gout found no benefit from colchicine over nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs on major adverse cardiovascular events. This information suggests several areas for reform of research on inflammation in atherosclerosis. Fully informed consent should require that clinical trials of anti-inflammatory agents in atherosclerotic arterial disease must disclose to trial participants the failures of this approach in over 50 clinical trials to date, spanning decades. Additionally, the field might reconsider its commitment to the Big Idea that inflammation must be a definitive therapeutic target in atherosclerosis. The track record so far for inflammation inhibition in atherosclerosis is extensive and disappointing-a fact that merits wider discussion. Therapeutic successes from targeting cholesterol-rich, apolipoprotein-B-containing lipoproteins-the proven causative agents of this disease-provide extraordinary evidence. Current data for colchicine and other anti-inflammatory therapies do not.
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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.