• Panagiotis Zis, Marios Hadjivassiliou, Ptolemaios G Sarrigiannis, Thomas M Jenkins, and Dimos-Dimitrios Mitsikostas.
• Academic Department of Neurosciences, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, UK. Electronic address: takiszis@gmail.com.
• J. Neurol. Sci. 2018 May 15; 388: 79-83.

IntroductionNocebo is very prevalent among neurological disorders, resulting in low adherence and treatment outcome. We sought to examine the adverse events (AE) following placebo administration in placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials (RCTs) for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP).MethodsAfter a systematic literature search for RCTs for CIDP pharmacotherapy treatments, we assessed the number of AE in the placebo groups and the number discontinuations because of placebo intolerance.ResultsOur literature search strategy revealed 82 papers. Data were extracted from three RCTs fulfilling our inclusion criteria. Approximately two in five placebo-treated patients (42.0%) reported at least one AE and approximately one in fifty placebo-treated patients discontinued placebo treatment because of AEs (2.1%). All patients participating in the CIDP trials reported similar AEs independently of the study arm they belonged.ConclusionCompared to other neurological diseases the nocebo effect in CIDP is significantly smaller.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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