The same careful rigour imposed on the design of phase III randomised controlled trials is not always applied to medical research in other areas such as trials conducted at earlier stages of drug development. With the emphasis that is now placed on evidence-based medicine, such care and rigour will inevitably impact on these areas with increasing attention turned to the quality of design. This title describes what principles can be used to structure research effectively allowing for the required degree of accuracy. Written by two best selling authors, this book includes many examples from medical literature and will be of great value to all groups conducting studies at the interface of clinical and laboratory research.

Designing Clinical Research sets the standard for providing a practical guide to planning, tabulating, formulating, and implementing clinical research, with an easy-to-read, uncomplicated presentation. This edition incorporates current research methodology—including molecular and genetic clinical research—and offers an updated syllabus for conducting a clinical research workshop. Emphasis is on common sense as the main ingredient of good science. The book explains how to choose well-focused research questions and details the steps through all the elements of study design, data collection, quality assurance, and basic grant-writing. All chapters have been thoroughly revised, updated, and made more user-friendly.

This book will examine current issues and controversies in the design of clinical trials, including topics in adaptive and sequential designs, the design of correlative genomic studies, the design of studies in which missing data is anticipated. Each chapter will be written by an expert conducting research in the topic of that chapter. As a collection, the chapters would be intended to serve as a guidance for statisticians designing trials.

More and more frequently, clinical trials include the evaluation of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), yet many investigators remain unaware of the unique measurement and analysis issues associated with the assessment of HRQoL. At the end of a study, clinicians and statisticians often face challenging and sometimes insurmountable analytic problems. Design and Analysis of Quality of Life Studies in Clinical Trials details these issues and presents a range of solutions. Written from the author's extensive experience in the field, it focuses on the very specific features of QoL data: its longitudinal nature, multidimensionality, and the problem of missing data. The author uses three real clinical trials throughout her discussions to illustrate practical implementation of the strategies and analytic methods presented. As Quality of Life becomes an increasingly important aspect of clinical trials, it becomes essential for clinicians, statisticians, and designers of these studies to understand and meet the challenges this kind of data present. In this book, SAS and S-PLUS programs, checklists, numerous figures, and a clear, concise presentation combine to provide readers with the tools and skills they need to successfully design, conduct, analyze, and report their own studies.

This is an open access book. The book provides an overview of the state of research in developing countries – Africa, Latin America, and Asia (especially India) and why research and publications are important in these regions. It addresses budding but struggling academics in low and middle-income countries. It is written mainly by senior colleagues who have experienced and recognized the challenges with design, documentation, and publication of health research in the developing world. The book includes short chapters providing insight into planning research at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, issues related to research ethics, and conduct of clinical trials. It also serves as a guide towards establishing a research question and research methodology. It covers important concepts such as writing a paper, the submission process, dealing with rejection and revisions, and covers additional topics such as planning lectures and presentations. The book will be useful for graduates, postgraduates, teachers as well as physicians and practitioners all over the developing world who are interested in academic medicine and wish to do medical research.

Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.

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.

Design Principles and Analysis Techniques for HRQoL Clinical TrialsSAS, R, and SPSS examples realistically show how to implement methods Focusing on longitudinal studies, Design and Analysis of Quality of Life Studies in Clinical Trials, Second Edition addresses design and analysis aspects in enough detail so that readers can apply statistical meth

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

With over 80 information-packed chapters, Handbook for Clinical Research delivers the practical insights and expert tips necessary for successful research design, analysis, and implementation. Using clear language and an accessible bullet point format, the authors present the knowledge and expertise developed over time and traditionally shared from mentor to mentee and colleague to colleague. Organized for quick access to key topics and replete with practical examples, the book describes a variety of research designs and statistical methods and explains how to choose the best design for a particular project. Research implementation, including regulatory issues and grant writing, is also covered. The book opens with a section on the basics of research design, discussing the many ways in which studies can be organized, executed, and evaluated. The second section is devoted to statistics and explains how to choose the correct statistical approach and reviews the varieties of data types, descriptive and inferential statistics, methods for demonstrating associations, hypothesis testing and prediction, specialized methods, and considerations in epidemiological studies and measure construction. The third section covers implementation, including how to develop a grant application step by step, the project budget, and the nuts and bolts of the timely and successful completion of a research project and documentation of findings: procedural manuals and case report forms collecting, managing and securing data operational structure and ongoing monitoring and evaluation and ethical and regulatory concerns in research with human subjects. With a concise presentation of the essentials for successful research, the Handbook for Clinical Research is a valuable addition to the library of any student, research professional, or clinician interested in expanding the knowledge base of his or her field. Key Features: Delivers the essential elements, practical insights, and trade secrets for ensuring successful research design, analysis, and implementation Presents the nuts and bolts of statistical analysis Organized for quick access to a wealth of information Replete with practical examples of successful research designs Û from single case designs to meta-analysis - and how to achieve them Addresses research implementation including regulatory issues and grant writing "