Control and the Therapeutic Trial

Control and the Therapeutic Trial
Author: Martin Edwards
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2015-07-14
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9401204942

Listen to podcast with the author How do doctors decide whether their drugs, or other treatments, actually work? In practice this can be fiendishly difficult. Nowadays the gold standard is the randomised controlled trial (RCT). But the RCT is a recent invention, and the story of how it came to dominate therapeutic evaluation from the latter half of the twentieth century involves acrimony, confrontation, and manipulation of the powerful rhetoric of ‘control’. Control and the Therapeutic Trial examines the development of the RCT from the eclectic collection of methodologies available to practitioners in the early-twentieth century. In particular, it explores the British Medical Research Council’s (MRC) exploitation of the term ‘controlled’ to help establish its own ‘controlled trials’ as the gold standard for therapeutic evaluation, and, ultimately, the MRC itself as the proper authority to adjudicate on therapeutic efficacy. This rhetorical power still clings, and is exploited today. Control and the Therapeutic Trial will be of interest not only to historians of twentieth-century medicine and practising clinicians who take therapeutic decisions, but to anyone who seeks a broader insight into the forces that shaped, and control, the modern controlled trial.

Small Clinical Trials

Small Clinical Trials
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309171148

Clinical trials are used to elucidate the most appropriate preventive, diagnostic, or treatment options for individuals with a given medical condition. Perhaps the most essential feature of a clinical trial is that it aims to use results based on a limited sample of research participants to see if the intervention is safe and effective or if it is comparable to a comparison treatment. Sample size is a crucial component of any clinical trial. A trial with a small number of research participants is more prone to variability and carries a considerable risk of failing to demonstrate the effectiveness of a given intervention when one really is present. This may occur in phase I (safety and pharmacologic profiles), II (pilot efficacy evaluation), and III (extensive assessment of safety and efficacy) trials. Although phase I and II studies may have smaller sample sizes, they usually have adequate statistical power, which is the committee's definition of a "large" trial. Sometimes a trial with eight participants may have adequate statistical power, statistical power being the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when the hypothesis is false. Small Clinical Trials assesses the current methodologies and the appropriate situations for the conduct of clinical trials with small sample sizes. This report assesses the published literature on various strategies such as (1) meta-analysis to combine disparate information from several studies including Bayesian techniques as in the confidence profile method and (2) other alternatives such as assessing therapeutic results in a single treated population (e.g., astronauts) by sequentially measuring whether the intervention is falling above or below a preestablished probability outcome range and meeting predesigned specifications as opposed to incremental improvement.

Smart Health Choices

Smart Health Choices
Author: Les Irwig
Publisher: Judy Irwig
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2008
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1905140177

Every day we make decisions about our health - some big and some small. What we eat, how we live and even where we live can affect our health. But how can we be sure that the advice we are given about these important matters is right for us? This book will provide you with the right tools for assessing health advice.

The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials

The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2010-12-21
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 030918651X

Randomized clinical trials are the primary tool for evaluating new medical interventions. Randomization provides for a fair comparison between treatment and control groups, balancing out, on average, distributions of known and unknown factors among the participants. Unfortunately, these studies often lack a substantial percentage of data. This missing data reduces the benefit provided by the randomization and introduces potential biases in the comparison of the treatment groups. Missing data can arise for a variety of reasons, including the inability or unwillingness of participants to meet appointments for evaluation. And in some studies, some or all of data collection ceases when participants discontinue study treatment. Existing guidelines for the design and conduct of clinical trials, and the analysis of the resulting data, provide only limited advice on how to handle missing data. Thus, approaches to the analysis of data with an appreciable amount of missing values tend to be ad hoc and variable. The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials concludes that a more principled approach to design and analysis in the presence of missing data is both needed and possible. Such an approach needs to focus on two critical elements: (1) careful design and conduct to limit the amount and impact of missing data and (2) analysis that makes full use of information on all randomized participants and is based on careful attention to the assumptions about the nature of the missing data underlying estimates of treatment effects. In addition to the highest priority recommendations, the book offers more detailed recommendations on the conduct of clinical trials and techniques for analysis of trial data.

Developing a Protocol for Observational Comparative Effectiveness Research: A User's Guide

Developing a Protocol for Observational Comparative Effectiveness Research: A User's Guide
Author: Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (U.S.)
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2013-02-21
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1587634236

This User’s Guide is a resource for investigators and stakeholders who develop and review observational comparative effectiveness research protocols. It explains how to (1) identify key considerations and best practices for research design; (2) build a protocol based on these standards and best practices; and (3) judge the adequacy and completeness of a protocol. Eleven chapters cover all aspects of research design, including: developing study objectives, defining and refining study questions, addressing the heterogeneity of treatment effect, characterizing exposure, selecting a comparator, defining and measuring outcomes, and identifying optimal data sources. Checklists of guidance and key considerations for protocols are provided at the end of each chapter. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews. More more information, please consult the Agency website: www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov)

Sharing Clinical Trial Data

Sharing Clinical Trial Data
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2015-04-20
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309316324

Data sharing can accelerate new discoveries by avoiding duplicative trials, stimulating new ideas for research, and enabling the maximal scientific knowledge and benefits to be gained from the efforts of clinical trial participants and investigators. At the same time, sharing clinical trial data presents risks, burdens, and challenges. These include the need to protect the privacy and honor the consent of clinical trial participants; safeguard the legitimate economic interests of sponsors; and guard against invalid secondary analyses, which could undermine trust in clinical trials or otherwise harm public health. Sharing Clinical Trial Data presents activities and strategies for the responsible sharing of clinical trial data. With the goal of increasing scientific knowledge to lead to better therapies for patients, this book identifies guiding principles and makes recommendations to maximize the benefits and minimize risks. This report offers guidance on the types of clinical trial data available at different points in the process, the points in the process at which each type of data should be shared, methods for sharing data, what groups should have access to data, and future knowledge and infrastructure needs. Responsible sharing of clinical trial data will allow other investigators to replicate published findings and carry out additional analyses, strengthen the evidence base for regulatory and clinical decisions, and increase the scientific knowledge gained from investments by the funders of clinical trials. The recommendations of Sharing Clinical Trial Data will be useful both now and well into the future as improved sharing of data leads to a stronger evidence base for treatment. This book will be of interest to stakeholders across the spectrum of research-from funders, to researchers, to journals, to physicians, and ultimately, to patients.

Saving Women's Lives

Saving Women's Lives
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2005-03-18
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309165946

The outlook for women with breast cancer has improved in recent years. Due to the combination of improved treatments and the benefits of mammography screening, breast cancer mortality has decreased steadily since 1989. Yet breast cancer remains a major problem, second only to lung cancer as a leading cause of death from cancer for women. To date, no means to prevent breast cancer has been discovered and experience has shown that treatments are most effective when a cancer is detected early, before it has spread to other tissues. These two facts suggest that the most effective way to continue reducing the death toll from breast cancer is improved early detection and diagnosis. Building on the 2001 report Mammography and Beyond, this new book not only examines ways to improve implementation and use of new and current breast cancer detection technologies but also evaluates the need to develop tools that identify women who would benefit most from early detection screening. Saving Women's Lives: Strategies for Improving Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis encourages more research that integrates the development, validation, and analysis of the types of technologies in clinical practice that promote improved risk identification techniques. In this way, methods and technologies that improve detection and diagnosis can be more effectively developed and implemented.

Clinical Trials

Clinical Trials
Author: Tom Brody
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 897
Release: 2016-02-19
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0128042583

Clinical Trials, Second Edition, offers those engaged in clinical trial design a valuable and practical guide. This book takes an integrated approach to incorporate biomedical science, laboratory data of human study, endpoint specification, legal and regulatory aspects and much more with the fundamentals of clinical trial design. It provides an overview of the design options along with the specific details of trial design and offers guidance on how to make appropriate choices. Full of numerous examples and now containing actual decisions from FDA reviewers to better inform trial design, the 2nd edition of Clinical Trials is a must-have resource for early and mid-career researchers and clinicians who design and conduct clinical trials. - Contains new and fully revised material on key topics such as biostatistics, biomarkers, orphan drugs, biosimilars, drug regulations in Europe, drug safety, regulatory approval and more - Extensively covers the "study schema" and related features of study design - Incorporates laboratory data from studies on human patients to provide a concrete tool for understanding the concepts in the design and conduct of clinical trials - Includes decisions made by FDA reviewers when granting approval of a drug as real world learning examples for readers

Drugs on Trial

Drugs on Trial
Author: Andreas-Holger Maehle
Publisher: Rodopi
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1999
Genre: Chemotherapy
ISBN: 9789042007833

This book describes the main issues of eighteenth-century pharmacology and therapeutics and provides detailed case studies of three key areas: lithontriptics (remedies against urinary stones), opium, and Peruvian bark (quinine).

Acute Ischemic Stroke

Acute Ischemic Stroke
Author: R. Gilberto González
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2010-10-05
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3642127517

This updated second edition of Acute Ischemic Stroke: Imaging and Intervention provides a comprehensive account of the state of the art in the diagnosis and treatment of acute ischemic stroke. The basic format of the first edition has been retained, with sections on fundamentals such as pathophysiology and causes, imaging techniques and interventions. However, each chapter has been revised to reflect the important recent progress in advanced neuroimaging and the use of interventional tools. In addition, a new chapter is included on the classification instruments for ischemic stroke and their use in predicting outcomes and therapeutic triage. All of the authors are internationally recognized experts and members of the interdisciplinary stroke team at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The text is supported by numerous informative illustrations, and ease of reference is ensured through the inclusion of suitable tables. This book will serve as a unique source of up-to-date information for neurologists, emergency physicians, radiologists and other health care providers who care for the patient with acute ischemic stroke.