Results on patient-reported outcomes are underreported in summaries of product characteristics for new drugs

BACKGROUND: Summaries of product characteristics (SmPCs) are regulatory documents published upon drug approval. They should report all relevant study data and advise how to use drugs safely and effectively. Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are increasingly used in clinical trials to incorporate the patient perspective—SmPCs should thus adequately report PROs. In Germany, new drugs undergo mandatory early benefit assessment. Pharmaceutical companies submit dossiers containing all evidence; the subsequent dossier assessments focus on patient-relevant outcomes and comprehensively report PROs. OBJECTIVE: The primary aim was to investigate to what extent PROs recorded as outcomes in clinical trials of new drugs are reported in SmPCs. METHODS: We analysed dossier assessments with randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of new drugs entering the market between 01/2014 and 07/2018 and the corresponding SmPCs, and compared PRO reporting in both document types. For this purpose, we evaluated dossier assessment characteristics (e.g. drug name, indication, disease category) and study characteristics (e.g. evaluable PROs available?). PROs were divided into symptoms and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). SmPCs were screened to identify RCTs. We conducted 3 main evaluation steps: (1) Did the RCT included in the dossier assessment contain evaluable PROs? (2) If yes, was the RCT included in the SmPC? (3) If yes, were the PROs reported in the SmPC? Results are presented descriptively. RESULTS: 88 dossier assessments including 143 RCTs on 72 drugs were considered: 109 (76.2%) RCTs included evaluable PROs, of which 89 were included in SmPCs. 38 RCTs (42.7%) investigated oncologics, 18 (20.2%) anti-infectives, and 33 (37.1%) other drugs. The RCTs considered symptoms more often than HRQoL (82 vs. 66 RCTs). In SmPCs, PROs were reported for 41 RCTs (46.1%), with a slightly higher reporting rate for RCTs considering HRQoL (43.9%) than for RCTs considering symptoms (41.5%). In oncologic indications, PROs were reported for 36.7% of RCTs considering HRQoL and 33.3% of RCTs considering symptoms. In infectious diseases, the rates were 21.4% (symptoms) and 0% (HRQoL), and for other diseases about 60% (symptoms) to 70% (HRQoL). CONCLUSION: Even though a large amount of PRO data on new drugs is available from clinical trials included in SmPCs, the corresponding results are underreported. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41687-021-00402-1.