Interim analyses are often performed in clinical trials to allow early termination of the study as soon as the investigators can be confident of the results. Such interim analyses better address the ethical and efficiency concerns inherent in a large scale clinical trial. The goal of this research is to broaden the spectrum of studies in which interim analyses can be used and to facilitate the use of such designs. Specific areas of research include: 1) development of methods to adjust survival curves for bias introduced by interim analyses; 2) investigation of methods to allow more flexible determination of number and timing of analyses; 3) specification of group sequential test designs appropriate for analysis of variance; 4) development of estimation methods for use in sequential analysis of variance; 5) investigation into the robustness of group sequential methods to departures from standard assumptions; and 6) development of computer software to integrate new and existing group sequential methods into a statistical analysis package.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
First Independent Research Support & Transition (FIRST) Awards (R29)
Project #
5R29CA053449-04
Application #
2095326
Study Section
AIDS and Related Research Study Section 2 (ARRB)
Project Start
1991-01-01
Project End
1995-12-31
Budget Start
1994-01-01
Budget End
1994-12-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
1994
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Arizona
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
City
Tucson
State
AZ
Country
United States
Zip Code
85721
Kittelson, J M; Emerson, S S (1999) A unifying family of group sequential test designs. Biometrics 55:874-82
Emerson, S S; Kittelson, J M (1997) A computationally simpler algorithm for the UMVUE of a normal mean following a group sequential trial. Biometrics 53:365-9