Background: Patient-reported outcomes data in clinical trials are usually reported as mean values, interpreted in comparison to a minimum clinically important difference (MCID) and ignoring the possibility of a sizable proportion of patients experiencing a worthwhile benefit when the majority did not. This analysis tested the reliability of calculated responder rates (from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD] patients) with the St George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) using a range of responder cut-points above and below the MCID (4 units).

Methods: Individual patient data (ie, data from long-acting bronchodilator [LAB] and inhaled corticosteroids [ICS]/long-acting beta2-agonist [LABA] randomized clinical studies) in the COPD Biomarker Qualification Consortium database were used: short-term (≤ 1-year duration; 14,814 patients,) and medium-term (2-4 years; 12,043 patients). Responder rates versus placebo across SGRQ score change thresholds ranging from-1.5 to-8.0 were tested; differences were expressed as the odds ratio (OR) of a patient exceeding the threshold versus no change or deterioration.

Results: The ORs measuring benefit of active treatment were similar across thresholds in short-term studies (LAB, ORs 1.40-1.42; LABA/ICS, 1.50-1.56) and medium-term LAB studies (ORs 1.34-1.43), whereas ORs in medium-term studies with LABA/ICS intervention showed a trend for higher response rates at higher values of threshold cut-points (1.64-1.79). In short-term studies, different thresholds had little effect on the OR between active drugs versus a trend for lower ORs with lower thresholds in medium-term studies.

Conclusions: The OR for a treatment effect compared with placebo appears consistent across a range of responder cut-points. In medium-term trials, the treatment difference between active drugs suggests that use of a lower threshold would not increase the odds of observing a measured treatment difference.