Francesco Mariani, Fulvio De Santis, Stefania Gubbiotti
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Non-inferiority trials compare new experimental therapies to standard ones (active control). In these experiments, historical information on the control treatment is often available. This makes Bayesian methodology appealing since it allows a natural way to exploit information from past studies. In the present paper, we suggest the use of previous data for constructing the prior distribution of the control effect parameter. Specifically, we consider a dynamic power prior that possibly allows to discount the level of borrowing in the presence of heterogeneity between past and current control data. The discount parameter of the prior is based on the Hellinger distance between the posterior distributions of the control parameter based, respectively, on historical and current data. We develop the methodology for comparing normal means and we handle the unknown variance assumption using MCMC. We also provide a simulation study to analyze the proposed test in terms of frequentist size and power, as it is usually requested by regulatory agencies. Finally, we investigate comparisons with some existing methods and we illustrate an application to a real case study.
期刊介绍:
Pharmaceutical Statistics is an industry-led initiative, tackling real problems in statistical applications. The Journal publishes papers that share experiences in the practical application of statistics within the pharmaceutical industry. It covers all aspects of pharmaceutical statistical applications from discovery, through pre-clinical development, clinical development, post-marketing surveillance, consumer health, production, epidemiology, and health economics.
The Journal is both international and multidisciplinary. It includes high quality practical papers, case studies and review papers.