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Cited by 517

The DOI matches its Crossref record.

Repeated assessment of results in clinical trials of cancer treatment

Haybittle, J. L.·1971·The British Journal of Radiology
DOI 10.1259/0007-1285-44-526-793
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Abstract

The problem of early assessment of results of clinical trials of cancer treatment is discussed, and the results of a computer simulation experiment presented. These show the extent to which repeated assessment of results before the end of a trial may invalidate the use of the usual significance tests. In typical practical situations, the use of yearly assessments and the acceptance as “significant” of a difference more than 1·96 times its standard error can increase two or threefold the probability of finding a “significant” difference where in fact no real difference exists between the treatments. This may be avoided if a more stringent criterion for significance is used in the early assessments. The results of a further set of simulation experiments are presented, where a difference in an early assessment is only considered significant if it is more than three times its standard error. This procedure enables results to be watched as a trial proceeds, but does not invalidate the use of a standard significance test to compare the final results. At the same time a small saving is achieved in the number of patients required.

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Metadata

Authors
Haybittle, J. L.
Venue
The British Journal of Radiology
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
1971-10
Volume
44
Issue
526
Pages
793-797
ISSN
  • 0007-1285 (ISSN-L)
  • 1748-880X
DOI
10.1259/0007-1285-44-526-793
OpenAlex
W2019909594
Cited by
517
References
0
FWCI
0.68
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.