- © 2008 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
Figure 7 of a recent meta-analysis examining smoking cessation therapies1 contains 2 errors. First, the second and third columns should have been labelled “Bupropion” and “Varenicline,” respectively. Second, varenicline was inadvertently compared with placebo rather than with bupropion, the intended comparator. The authors' revised analysis suggests that varenicline therapy may increase the proportion of patients who are abstinent compared with bupropion therapy; however, the credible interval (CrI) is wide, and these results are not definitive (odds ratio 1.40, 95% CrI 0.75–2.66) (Figure 1). All the other analyses presented in this article have been re-verified.
Figure 1: Direct comparison of the effect of varenicline and bupropion on smoking cessation, based on results from varenicline trials that had a bupropion control arm. Trials are ordered based on the number of patients analyzed using the most rigorous criteria.
CrI = credible interval.
REFERENCE
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