Statistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.

BACKGROUND: The social and economic burden of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its increasing prevalence has led to much work on new treatment strategies and clinical trials. The search for surrogate markers of disease progression continues but traditional parallel group trial designs that use wel...

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Main Authors: Thompson, P, Wright, D, Counsell, C, Zajicek, J
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2012
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author Thompson, P
Wright, D
Counsell, C
Zajicek, J
author_facet Thompson, P
Wright, D
Counsell, C
Zajicek, J
author_sort Thompson, P
collection OXFORD
description BACKGROUND: The social and economic burden of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its increasing prevalence has led to much work on new treatment strategies and clinical trials. The search for surrogate markers of disease progression continues but traditional parallel group trial designs that use well-established, but often insensitive, clinical outcome measures predominate. METHODS: We performed a systematic search across the Cochrane Library and PubMed abstracts published between January 2004 and August 2009. Information regarding the clinical trial methodology, outcome measures, intervention type and primary statistical analysis techniques was extracted and categorized, according to a standard protocol. RESULTS: We identified 149 papers describing results from clinical trials in AD containing sufficient detail for our purposes. The largest proportion (38%) presented results of trials based on tests of cognition as the primary outcome measure. The primary analysis in most papers (85%) was a univariate significance test of a single primary outcome measure. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of trials reported a comparison of baseline and end-point assessment over relatively short patient follow-up periods, using univariate statistical methods to compare differences between intervention and control groups in the primary analysis. There is considerable scope to introduce newer statistical methods and trial designs in treatment evaluations in AD.
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spelling oxford-uuid:08779120-b2aa-44af-8885-4eb9dc70b2e22022-03-26T09:13:02ZStatistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:08779120-b2aa-44af-8885-4eb9dc70b2e2EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2012Thompson, PWright, DCounsell, CZajicek, J BACKGROUND: The social and economic burden of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its increasing prevalence has led to much work on new treatment strategies and clinical trials. The search for surrogate markers of disease progression continues but traditional parallel group trial designs that use well-established, but often insensitive, clinical outcome measures predominate. METHODS: We performed a systematic search across the Cochrane Library and PubMed abstracts published between January 2004 and August 2009. Information regarding the clinical trial methodology, outcome measures, intervention type and primary statistical analysis techniques was extracted and categorized, according to a standard protocol. RESULTS: We identified 149 papers describing results from clinical trials in AD containing sufficient detail for our purposes. The largest proportion (38%) presented results of trials based on tests of cognition as the primary outcome measure. The primary analysis in most papers (85%) was a univariate significance test of a single primary outcome measure. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of trials reported a comparison of baseline and end-point assessment over relatively short patient follow-up periods, using univariate statistical methods to compare differences between intervention and control groups in the primary analysis. There is considerable scope to introduce newer statistical methods and trial designs in treatment evaluations in AD.
spellingShingle Thompson, P
Wright, D
Counsell, C
Zajicek, J
Statistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.
title Statistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.
title_full Statistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.
title_fullStr Statistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.
title_full_unstemmed Statistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.
title_short Statistical analysis, trial design and duration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials: a review.
title_sort statistical analysis trial design and duration in alzheimer s disease clinical trials a review
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