Autism Drug Tracker: Consumer Information | Spectrum
Spectrum’s Autism Drug Tracker provides interactive, curated information on hundreds of clinical studies on autism and related diseases. For details on how we filtered our data, please see the Drug Tracker Announcement article. See below for information on using the tracker.
Which studies are included in the drug tracker?
The Autism Drug Tracker includes clinical trials from the ClinicalTrials.gov database, which was launched in September 2008. Our tracker includes phase 2 and higher placebo-controlled studies, mainly because phase 1 studies can vary widely in their design. Some drugs were tested in combined phase 1/2 studies, which our tracker also excludes. We also excluded studies based solely on behavioral interventions.
We worked with clinicians and researchers, some of whom designed and conducted their own clinical trials for people with autism, to select our data inclusion criteria.
For each clinical trial, we have also manually curated information that is not available on ClinicalTrials.gov. For example, we independently determined whether each drug was previously approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a different condition, and identified studies with a “combined modality,” meaning they could have multiple drugs in one Study combined or mixed drug intervention with behavior therapy. We have also identified peer-reviewed articles for each clinical trial, when available on PubMed, and provided an editorial description for each drug, more than 100 of which are included in the tracker.
The tracker includes studies of therapies for autism and the following related diseases: Angelman Syndrome, Dup15q Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, Prader-Willi Syndrome, Rett Syndrome, Timothy Syndrome, Tuberous Sclerosis -Complex, Williams syndrome and 16p duplications and deletions.
How was data collected?
Phase 2 or higher placebo controlled clinical trials were captured by querying the Clinical Trials API with custom Python scripts. The data was cleaned up and filtered with the Python Pandas library. A Python script that runs once a month checks for new and updated clinical studies. The drug descriptions were written manually and factually checked for each drug.
The Python scripts and raw records are freely available on GitHub. For more information on column names and how to use the scripts in your own work, see the README file.
How do I filter the data?
The drug tracker can be accessed directly from the Spectrum website.
At the top of the drug tracker, we indicate when the data was last updated. This refers to the last date that clinical trial data was updated or added.
The core of the drug tracker is a vertically and horizontally scrollable table. The table contains information on hundreds of clinical studies. For each study, we provide your NCTId (a unique code given by the FDA for a clinical study). Click on any NCTId to go to the clinical trial website at ClinicalTrials.gov. By default, the data is sorted by text from A to Z based on the “Drugs Tested” column. Click the name of this column to sort the data from Z to A instead. Click another column name to sort the data alphabetically in a similar manner.
For detailed descriptions of the column names, see the NIH Glossary. Further column descriptions can be found below:
Drugs Tested: The drugs that were examined in the study.
Condition: The condition that was addressed in the study, such as autism or Rett syndrome.
Previously Approved: Indicates whether the drug being tested has previously been approved by the FDA for another condition.
Approved Conditions: The conditions for which the drug, if any, was previously approved.
Combined modality: Indicates whether multiple drugs were tested in the study or whether a drug was tested in combination with behavioral therapy.
Placebo: Indicates whether the study was placebo-controlled.
Status: The currently known status of the study, e.g. B. “Recruiting” or “Completed”.
Drug Description: A curated description of the biological mechanism by which the drug is believed to act on the human body, if available, along with additional information from Spectrum articles and other sources. This column only provides an editorial description of the perceived drug mechanisms and details from our previous coverage.
Spectrum Coverage: A link to a Spectrum article on the clinical trial, if available.
Paper: DOI links to papers listed on PubMed based on an entered NCTId.
Design assignment: Indicates whether the study participants were randomly assigned to the treatment groups randomly (randomized) or not (not randomized).
Design Intervention: The general design of the strategy for assigning interventions to participants in a clinical trial. Intervention models include: crossover, factorial, parallel, sequential, and single group assignment.
Design masking: A clinical trial design strategy in which one or more parties involved in the trial, such as the investigator or the participants, do not know which interventions were assigned to which participants. The types of masking include: open label, single-blind masking, and double-blind masking.
Enrollment Count: The number of participants who are enrolled for the trial.
Gender: The gender of the study participants: male, female, or all.
Minimum Age: The minimum age, in years, of the participants in the study.
Maximum age: The maximum age of the study participants in years.
Main Sponsor: The name of the main sponsor; typically a company or individual associated with an academic laboratory.
Sponsor Country: The country in which the main sponsor is headquartered, determined by Google search.
Start date: start of the clinical study.
Start Date Type: Indicates whether the start date is an actual or an expected value.
Completion Date: When the clinical study has been completed.
Closing Date Type: Indicates whether the closing date is an actual or an expected value.
First publication of results: the date the results were first published, if applicable.
Last Updated: The last date Spectrum updated the test data.
The data in the table can be filtered by study sponsor, drug approval, and other criteria. To do this, simply click on a button. To filter the data by number of registrations, drag the slider. Each filter can be deleted at any time by clicking the “Clear selection” button.
How do I download the data?
To download the data as a .csv file, click the “Download data.csv” button. The file size attached to this label is automatically updated in real time based on how much data there is in the filtered table.
Clicking the button will download a .csv file containing only the studies listed in the filtered table and only the columns provided in the drug tracker. A data set with all clinical studies – with additional data and columns – is also freely available.
How do I use these charts?
The charts below the table are updated in real time. They always reflect the filtered data that is in the table.
Two graphs can be customized: a frequency graph, also known as a histogram; and a scatter plot. The histogram can be used to plot one column at a time of the filtered data, while the scatter plot can be used to compare two variables at the same time.
Histogram: This chart has three drop-down menus. The first, called the ‘x-axis’, is used to select the column of data to be drawn. The second menu, ‘Number of Containers’, is a slider. Drag the node to increase or decrease the number of classes shown on the diagram. The more bins, the higher the level of detail, which is often useful when viewing hundreds of data points. The third menu, Colorize By …, is used to colorize the histogram based on a variety of criteria, e.g. B. the disease treated or the gender of the study participants. The figure legend above each diagram is automatically updated to reflect the “Color By …” selection.
Example: To determine the number of studies completed in 2021, select “Completion date” from the drop-down menu for the x-axis. Then select “Start date type” from the “Color by…” drop-down menu. Move the mouse pointer over the dark red bar that is positioned in the year 2021. More than 100 clinical studies were completed in 2021.
Scatter Chart: This chart has three drop-down menus. The first, called the ‘x-axis’, selects the data that will be plotted in the horizontal dimension. The second menu, ‘Y-Axis’, selects the data that is plotted in the vertical dimension. The third menu again offers options for coloring the data points according to various criteria.
For example, to determine how long it will take to complete clinical trials, select “Start Date” from the x-axis drop-down menu. Then select “Completion Date” from the Y-Axis drop-down menu. Finally, select the “Closing date type” option from the “Color by…” drop-down menu. Dark red dots actually correspond to completed tests. Hover over any point to view additional information about the trial version. A clinical study (NCT00718341) started in 2009 and wasn’t completed until 2021!
Example: To determine which drugs have been tested for which diseases (such as autism or Fragile X syndrome), select “Condition” from the x-axis drop-down menu. Then select “Drugs tested” from the y-axis drop-down menu. The diagram is updated automatically; For example, arbaclofen was tested for both autism and Fragile X syndrome, while oxytocin was tested for autism, Fragile X syndrome, and Phelan-McDermid syndrome.
How can I give feedback?
Please send an email to niko@spectrumnews.org with comments, feedback or missing data.
