Reliably optimizing a new treatment in humans is a critical first step in clinical evaluation since choosing a suboptimal dose or schedule may lead to failure in later trials. At the same time, if promising preclinical results do not translate into a real treatment advance, it is important to determine this quickly and terminate the clinical evaluation process to avoid wasting resources. Bayesian Designs for Phase I–II Clinical Trials describes how phase I–II designs can serve as a bridge or protective barrier between preclinical studies and large confirmatory clinical trials. It illustrates many of the severe drawbacks with conventional methods used for early-phase clinical trials and presents numerous Bayesian designs for human clinical trials of new experimental treatment regimes. Written by research leaders from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, this book shows how Bayesian designs for early-phase clinical trials can explore, refine, and optimize new experimental treatments. It emphasizes the importance of basing decisions on both efficacy and toxicity.

Already popular in the analysis of medical device trials, adaptive Bayesian designs are increasingly being used in drug development for a wide variety of diseases and conditions, from Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis to obesity, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV. Written by leading pioneers of Bayesian clinical trial designs, Bayesian Adapti

A balanced treatment of the theories, methodologies, and design issues involved in clinical trials using statistical methods There has been enormous interest and development in Bayesian adaptive designs, especially for early phases of clinical trials. However, for phase III trials, frequentist methods still play a dominant role through controlling type I and type II errors in the hypothesis testing framework. From practical perspectives, Clinical Trial Design: Bayesian and Frequentist Adaptive Methods provides comprehensive coverage of both Bayesian and frequentist approaches to all phases of clinical trial design. Before underpinning various adaptive methods, the book establishes an overview of the fundamentals of clinical trials as well as a comparison of Bayesian and frequentist statistics. Recognizing that clinical trial design is one of the most important and useful skills in the pharmaceutical industry, this book provides detailed discussions on a variety of statistical designs, their properties, and operating characteristics for phase I, II, and III clinical trials as well as an introduction to phase IV trials. Many practical issues and challenges arising in clinical trials are addressed. Additional topics of coverage include: Risk and benefit analysis for toxicity and efficacy trade-offs Bayesian predictive probability trial monitoring Bayesian adaptive randomization Late onset toxicity and response Dose finding in drug combination trials Targeted therapy designs The author utilizes cutting-edge clinical trial designs and statistical methods that have been employed at the world's leading medical centers as well as in the pharmaceutical industry. The software used throughout the book is freely available on the book's related website, equipping readers with the necessary tools for designing clinical trials. Clinical Trial Design is an excellent book for courses on the topic at the graduate level. The book also serves as a valuable reference for statisticians and biostatisticians in the pharmaceutical industry as well as for researchers and practitioners who design, conduct, and monitor clinical trials in their everyday work.

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.

This book provides a detailed review of how oncology drug development has changed over the past decade, and serves as a comprehensive guide for the practicalities in setting up phase I trials. The book covers strategies to accelerate the development of novel antitumor compounds from the laboratory to clinical trials and beyond through the use of innovative mechanism-of-action pharmacodynamic biomarkers and pharmacokinetic studies. The reader will learn about all aspects of modern phase I trial designs, including the incorporation of precision medicine strategies, and approaches for rational patient allocation to novel anticancer therapies. Circulating biomarkers to assess mechanisms of response and resistance are changing the way we are assessing patient selection and are also covered in this book. The development of the different classes of antitumor agents are discussed, including chemotherapy, molecularly targeted agents, immunotherapies and also radiotherapy. The authors also discuss the lessons that the oncology field has learnt from the development of hematology-oncology drugs and how such strategies can be carried over into therapies for solid tumors. There is a dedicated chapter that covers the specialized statistical approaches necessary for phase I trial designs, including novel Bayesian strategies for dose escalation. This volume is designed to help clinicians better understand phase I clinical trials, but would also be of use to translational researchers (MDs and PhDs), and drug developers from academia and industry interested in cancer drug development. It could also be of use to phase I trial study coordinators, oncology nurses and advanced practice providers. Other health professionals interested in the treatment of cancer will also find this book of great value.

The third edition of the bestselling Clinical Trials in Oncology provides a concise, nontechnical, and thoroughly up-to-date review of methods and issues related to cancer clinical trials. The authors emphasize the importance of proper study design, analysis, and data management and identify the pitfalls inherent in these processes. In addition, the book has been restructured to have separate chapters and expanded discussions on general clinical trials issues, and issues specific to Phases I, II, and III. New sections cover innovations in Phase I designs, randomized Phase II designs, and overcoming the challenges of array data. Although this book focuses on cancer trials, the same issues and concepts are important in any clinical setting. As always, the authors use clear, lucid prose and a multitude of real-world examples to convey the principles of successful trials without the need for a strong statistics or mathematics background. Armed with Clinical Trials in Oncology, Third Edition, clinicians and statisticians can avoid the many hazards that can jeopardize the success of a trial.

Bayesian adaptive designs provide a critical approach to improve the efficiency and success of drug development that has been embraced by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This is particularly important for early phase trials as they form the basis for the development and success of subsequent phase II and III trials. The objective of this book is to describe the state-of-the-art model-assisted designs to facilitate and accelerate the use of novel adaptive designs for early phase clinical trials. Model-assisted designs possess avant-garde features where superiority meets simplicity. Model-assisted designs enjoy exceptional performance comparable to more complicated model-based adaptive designs, yet their decision rules often can be pre-tabulated and included in the protocol—making implementation as simple as conventional algorithm-based designs. An example is the Bayesian optimal interval (BOIN) design, the first dose-finding design to receive the fit-for-purpose designation from the FDA. This designation underscores the regulatory agency's support of the use of the novel adaptive design to improve drug development. Features Represents the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of model-assisted designs for various types of dose-finding and optimization clinical trials Describes the up-to-date theory and practice for model-assisted designs Presents many practical challenges, issues, and solutions arising from early-phase clinical trials Illustrates with many real trial applications Offers numerous tips and guidance on designing dose finding and optimization trials Provides step-by-step illustrations of using software to design trials Develops a companion website (www.trialdesign.org) to provide freely available, easy-to-use software to assist learning and implementing model-assisted designs Written by internationally recognized research leaders who pioneered model-assisted designs from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, this book shows how model-assisted designs can greatly improve the efficiency and simplify the design, conduct, and optimization of early-phase dose-finding trials. It should therefore be a very useful practical reference for biostatisticians, clinicians working in clinical trials, and drug regulatory professionals, as well as graduate students of biostatistics. Novel model-assisted designs showcase the new KISS principle: Keep it simple and smart!