Dupuytren's disease & drug repurposing
Every study I could find of a drug in Dupuytren's, plus the main trials of surgery, needle, enzyme and radiotherapy treatments. That's 112 studies and 80 registered trials, each linked to its source.
Why it’s usefulIt shows how little of the drug research has reached patients. You can also search it to check a particular treatment.
What's included
Every drug ever studied in Dupuytren's is here, down to single case reports and claims from the 1940s. For surgery there are thousands of papers, so I included the trials, reviews and guidelines only.
Two separate lists
Published studies and registered trials are kept apart. Only 8 of 112 papers cite a registry ID, so merging them would double-count some programmes and lose others.
Gaps in old records
10 older papers have no summary in PubMed, so some details read "not stated". That means the information is missing. It doesn't mean the study found nothing. They are flagged.
This is the gap between lab promise and patients. There are ten published reports of randomised trials of a drug in Dupuytren's. Only one drug, adalimumab, was tested on its own to see if it changes the disease. Six others (tamoxifen, triamcinolone, celecoxib, prednisolone, 5-fluorouracil and fat grafting) were only tested as add-ons to surgery or an injection. Everything else is lab work, case reports or small uncontrolled studies.
How far each candidate drug has got in Dupuytren's
Highest level of Dupuytren-specific evidence for the 12 candidates in the candidates page. Stand-alone versus adjuvant split from the Phase 3 analysis.
What the 61 drug studies actually are
Most are lab or tissue studies. (Counted with the studies_a_drug flag. Counting by treatment type misses drug-plus-surgery trials, which caused an early error.)
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These are all 80 trials registered for Dupuytren's on ClinicalTrials.gov. Most test procedures such as collagenase, needle and surgical techniques, splints or anaesthetics. Only four test a drug meant to change the disease itself, and only 14 of the 80 have posted their results.
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Three earlier stories from this disease are worth remembering whenever a lab result looks promising.
5-FU selectively cut collagen synthesis in Dupuytren's fibroblasts PMID 15988270 PMID 10777424, then a randomised trial of intra-operative use found no difference PMID 14734063. The evidence for tofacitinib, metformin and pirfenidone today looks much like 5-FU's did then.
Fat-derived stem cells plus platelet-rich plasma turned myofibroblasts into fat cells in a rat model PMID 37480917. The clinical procedure lost to plain fasciectomy: 74% vs 39% recurrence at 5 years PMID 30489526, and more complications (43% vs 8%) PMID 32788855.
A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (n=30) found a smaller extension deficit at 3 months, but the benefit was lost over the two years after the drug was stopped PMID 24740662. It's the only evidence in people on whether a drug's benefit lasts after stopping.
A 2024 meta-analysis of 16 collagenase studies compared industry-sponsored with non-sponsored trials PMID 38527344. After a single injection, non-sponsored studies reported higher rates of full correction (to 0–5°) than sponsored ones. With multiple injections the rates were similar.
Separately, all five randomised trials comparing collagenase with needle fasciotomy were judged at high risk of bias, and pre-trial protocols could be found for only two PMID 38949161.
The original research report described this the other way round. I checked it against the paper's abstract and corrected it (see corrections).