Sample Size Calculations in Clinical Research


Book Description

Praise for the Second Edition: "... this is a useful, comprehensive compendium of almost every possible sample size formula. The strong organization and carefully defined formulae will aid any researcher designing a study." -Biometrics "This impressive book contains formulae for computing sample size in a wide range of settings. One-sample studies and two-sample comparisons for quantitative, binary, and time-to-event outcomes are covered comprehensively, with separate sample size formulae for testing equality, non-inferiority, and equivalence. Many less familiar topics are also covered ..." – Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Sample Size Calculations in Clinical Research, Third Edition presents statistical procedures for performing sample size calculations during various phases of clinical research and development. A comprehensive and unified presentation of statistical concepts and practical applications, this book includes a well-balanced summary of current and emerging clinical issues, regulatory requirements, and recently developed statistical methodologies for sample size calculation. Features: Compares the relative merits and disadvantages of statistical methods for sample size calculations Explains how the formulae and procedures for sample size calculations can be used in a variety of clinical research and development stages Presents real-world examples from several therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular medicine, the central nervous system, anti-infective medicine, oncology, and women’s health Provides sample size calculations for dose response studies, microarray studies, and Bayesian approaches This new edition is updated throughout, includes many new sections, and five new chapters on emerging topics: two stage seamless adaptive designs, cluster randomized trial design, zero-inflated Poisson distribution, clinical trials with extremely low incidence rates, and clinical trial simulation.




Sample Sizes for Clinical Trials


Book Description

Drawing on various real-world applications, Sample Sizes for Clinical Trials takes readers through the process of calculating sample sizes for many types of clinical trials. It provides descriptions of the calculations with a practical emphasis.Focusing on normal, binary, ordinal, and survival data, the book explores a range of trials, including su




Sample Size Calculations for Clustered and Longitudinal Outcomes in Clinical Research


Book Description

Accurate sample size calculation ensures that clinical studies have adequate power to detect clinically meaningful effects. This results in the efficient use of resources and avoids exposing a disproportionate number of patients to experimental treatments caused by an overpowered study. Sample Size Calculations for Clustered and Longitudinal Outcomes in Clinical Research explains how to determine sample size for studies with correlated outcomes, which are widely implemented in medical, epidemiological, and behavioral studies. The book focuses on issues specific to the two types of correlated outcomes: longitudinal and clustered. For clustered studies, the authors provide sample size formulas that accommodate variable cluster sizes and within-cluster correlation. For longitudinal studies, they present sample size formulas to account for within-subject correlation among repeated measurements and various missing data patterns. For multiple levels of clustering, the level at which to perform randomization actually becomes a design parameter. The authors show how this can greatly impact trial administration, analysis, and sample size requirement. Addressing the overarching theme of sample size determination for correlated outcomes, this book provides a useful resource for biostatisticians, clinical investigators, epidemiologists, and social scientists whose research involves trials with correlated outcomes. Each chapter is self-contained so readers can explore topics relevant to their research projects without having to refer to other chapters.




Methods and Applications of Sample Size Calculation and Recalculation in Clinical Trials


Book Description

This book provides an extensive overview of the principles and methods of sample size calculation and recalculation in clinical trials. Appropriate calculation of the required sample size is crucial for the success of clinical trials. At the same time, a sample size that is too small or too large is problematic due to ethical, scientific, and economic reasons. Therefore, state-of-the art methods are required when planning clinical trials. Part I describes a general framework for deriving sample size calculation procedures. This enables an understanding of the common principles underlying the numerous methods presented in the following chapters. Part II addresses the fixed sample size design, where the required sample size is determined in the planning stage and is not changed afterwards. It covers sample size calculation methods for superiority, non-inferiority, and equivalence trials, as well as comparisons between two and more than two groups. A wide range of further topics is discussed, including sample size calculation for multiple comparisons, safety assessment, and multi-regional trials. There is often some uncertainty about the assumptions to be made when calculating the sample size upfront. Part III presents methods that allow to modify the initially specified sample size based on new information that becomes available during the ongoing trial. Blinded sample size recalculation procedures for internal pilot study designs are considered, as well as methods for sample size reassessment in adaptive designs that use unblinded data from interim analyses. The application is illustrated using numerous clinical trial examples, and software code implementing the methods is provided. The book offers theoretical background and practical advice for biostatisticians and clinicians from the pharmaceutical industry and academia who are involved in clinical trials. Covering basic as well as more advanced and recently developed methods, it is suitable for beginners, experienced applied statisticians, and practitioners. To gain maximum benefit, readers should be familiar with introductory statistics. The content of this book has been successfully used for courses on the topic.




Sample Size Tables for Clinical Studies


Book Description

This book provides statisticians and researchers with the statistical tools - equations, formulae and numerical tables - to design and plan clinical studies and carry out accurate, reliable and reproducible analysis of the data so obtained. There is no way around this as incorrect procedure in clinical studies means that the researcher's paper will not be accepted by a peer-reviewed journal. Planning and analysing clinical studies is a very complicated business and this book provides indispensible factual information. Please go to http://booksupport.wiley.com and enter 9781405146500 to easily download the supporting materials.




Sample Size Calculations


Book Description

Sample Size Calculations: Practical Methods for Engineers and Scientists presents power and sample size calculations for common statistical analyses including methods for means, standard deviations, proportions, counts, regression, correlation, and measures of agreement. Topics of special interest to quality engineering professionals include designed experiments, reliability studies, statistical process control, acceptance sampling, process capability analysis, statistical tolerancing, and gage error studies. The book emphasizes approximate methods, but exact methods are presented when the approximate methods fail. Monte Carlo and bootstrap methods are introduced for situations that don't satisfy the assumptions of the analytical methods. Solutions are presented for more than 170 example problems and solutions for selected example problems using PASS, MINITAB, Piface, and R are posted on the Internet.




Practical Statistics for Medical Research


Book Description

Practical Statistics for Medical Research is a problem-based text for medical researchers, medical students, and others in the medical arena who need to use statistics but have no specialized mathematics background. The author draws on twenty years of experience as a consulting medical statistician to provide clear explanations to key statistical concepts, with a firm emphasis on practical aspects of designing and analyzing medical research. Using real data and including dozens of interesting data sets, this bestselling text gives special attention to the presentation and interpretation of results and the many real problems that arise in medical research.




Sample Size Determination in Clinical Trials with Multiple Endpoints


Book Description

This book integrates recent methodological developments for calculating the sample size and power in trials with more than one endpoint considered as multiple primary or co-primary, offering an important reference work for statisticians working in this area. The determination of sample size and the evaluation of power are fundamental and critical elements in the design of clinical trials. If the sample size is too small, important effects may go unnoticed; if the sample size is too large, it represents a waste of resources and unethically puts more participants at risk than necessary. Recently many clinical trials have been designed with more than one endpoint considered as multiple primary or co-primary, creating a need for new approaches to the design and analysis of these clinical trials. The book focuses on the evaluation of power and sample size determination when comparing the effects of two interventions in superiority clinical trials with multiple endpoints. Methods for sample size calculation in clinical trials where the alternative hypothesis is that there are effects on ALL endpoints are discussed in detail. The book also briefly examines trials designed with an alternative hypothesis of an effect on AT LEAST ONE endpoint with a prespecified non-ordering of endpoints.




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


Book Description

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)




Field Trials of Health Interventions


Book Description

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Before new interventions are released into disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in field trials'. These may be complex and expensive undertakings, requiring the follow-up of hundreds, or thousands, of individuals, often for long periods. Descriptions of the detailed procedures and methods used in the trials that have been conducted have rarely been published. A consequence of this, individuals planning such trials have few guidelines available and little access to knowledge accumulated previously, other than their own. In this manual, practical issues in trial design and conduct are discussed fully and in sufficient detail, that Field Trials of Health Interventions may be used as a toolbox' by field investigators. It has been compiled by an international group of over 30 authors with direct experience in the design, conduct, and analysis of field trials in low and middle income countries and is based on their accumulated knowledge and experience. Available as an open access book via Oxford Medicine Online, this new edition is a comprehensive revision, incorporating the new developments that have taken place in recent years with respect to trials, including seven new chapters on subjects ranging from trial governance, and preliminary studies to pilot testing.