Talk:Cerebrolysin

Expanding from Russian
I am expanding the article from its Russian translation. Slow process as that article needed to be significantly revised as well. Very prominent nootropic in Russia and Asia with more accepted use overseas. Slow process wading through the literature. I enjoy sandwiches (talk) 16:30, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Conflicting statement regarding rate of Serious Adverse Events
In the beginning of the article, it states the following (twice) under the subheader 'Stroke': "cerebrolysin use was associated with a higher rate of spontaneous adverse events requiring hospitalization." Then under the header "Adverse effects" it states the opposite: "In trials studying the use of cerebrolysin after acute stroke, there was no increased risk of "serious adverse events" requiring hospitalization.

These statements are complete opposites while both maintain the grade of adverse effects as those requiring hospitalization, which are always classified as serious within the medical literature.

For both statements the same paper is referenced [2]. Upon examining the paper it becomes clear that the meta-analysis shows no difference in the total number of Severe Adverse Effects(SAE), while stating the evidence available to date is of poor to moderate quality.

They do state that there was a potential increase in the number of non-fatal SAE's, but this would mean there was a decrease in fatal SAE's, else the total number of SAE couldn't remain the same. This would imply it had a slight benefit, but they conclude that there was probably none. This clearly shows the evidence is of too poor quality to make any sensible conclusions, except for the fact that there was no difference in total SAE's.

The claim in the current wikipedia article that there was an increase in the rate of SAE's should therefore be removed and instead the conclusion should be that a recent meta-analysis found no significant changes to the rate of SAE to be likely, and that they found no improvement of symptoms in people with a stroke specifically, although stressing that the evidence for this is of insufficient quality. It could be stressed that it's important to conduct proper independent randomized double-blind placebo-controlled studies, as these are debilitating diseases well worth the economic cost of research to society.

Any claims of harm (or benefit) need to be properly substantiated, which is currently not possible.