The reply is 'sure', however the query is how? A paper by Che et al. (2024) examines the usage of real-world information (RWD) in HTA assessments from 2016-2023. Throughout this era, 11% of HTA submissions included real-world information. They additional discover that:

The primary sources of RWD thought-about within the submissions had been illness registries and digital well being information. RWD was used primarily to offer an exterior management arm to permit comparisons inside single-arm research and to tell long-term remedy results when extrapolating survival information past examine follow-up. Changes for potential systematic variations between remedy teams have improved over time; nevertheless, roughly one-third of entries had been nonetheless based mostly on unadjusted remedy comparisons… Over one-third of entries had been based mostly on naive and/or unadjusted remedy comparisons…

We’re seeing a pattern in the direction of elevated use of RWD as a part of the NICE HTA submission.

Of the 64 HTA submissions with RWD, two-thirds (n=44) thought-about RWD for ECA evaluation solely within the base case, 9 had been thought-about in each the bottom case and sensitivity evaluation, and 11 thought-about RWD solely in taken under consideration by way of sensitivity/state of affairs evaluation.

Normally (30 of 44), confounding changes had been carried out, with the approaches used being weighted (n=20), matching (n=7), regression (n=4), and simulated remedy comparability (n=2).

Why wasn't RWD used? Quite a few causes got for survival extrapolation:

In 20 entries, the true ECA [external control arm] was thought-about inappropriate for extrapolation for a number of causes, together with (1) brief follow-up, (2) inclusion of therapies not noticed in UK scientific apply, and (3) key endpoints (e.g. progression-free survival) not collected .

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