Why Most Acute Stroke Studies Are Positive in Animals but Not in Patients: A Systematic Comparison of Preclinical, Early Phase, and Phase 3 Clinical Trials of Neuroprotective Agents

To analyze why numerous acute stroke treatments were successful in the laboratory but failed in large clinical trials.We searched all phase 3 trials of medical treatments for acute ischemic stroke and corresponding early clinical and experimental studies. We compared the overall efficacy and assessed the impact of publication bias and study design on the efficacy. Furthermore, we estimated power and true report probability of experimental...