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A modest proposal for dropping poor arms in clinical trials
Author(s) -
Proschan Michael A.,
Dodd Lori E.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.6169
Subject(s) - computer science , clinical trial , econometrics , statistics , medicine , mathematics
This paper presents a simple procedure for clinical trials comparing several arms with control. Demand for streamlining the evaluation of new treatments has led to phase III clinical trials with more arms than would have been used in the past. In such a setting, it is reasonable that some arms may not perform as well as an active control. We introduce a simple procedure that takes advantage of negative results in some comparisons to lessen the required strength of evidence for other comparisons. We evaluate properties analytically and use them to support claims made about multi‐arm multi‐stage designs. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.