Assessment of statistical significance and clinical relevance

In drug development, it is well accepted that a successful study will demonstrate not only a statistically significant result but also a clinically relevant effect size. Whereas standard hypothesis tests are used to demonstrate the former, it is less clear how the latter should be established. In th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kieser, Meinhard (Author) , Friede, Tim (Author) , Gondan, Matthias (Author)
Format: Article (Journal)
Language:English
Published: 2013
In: Statistics in medicine
Year: 2013, Volume: 32, Issue: 10, Pages: 1707-1719
ISSN:1097-0258
DOI:10.1002/sim.5634
Online Access:Verlag, Volltext: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sim.5634
Verlag, Volltext: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sim.5634
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Author Notes:Meinhard Kieser, Tim Friede, Matthias Gondan
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Summary:In drug development, it is well accepted that a successful study will demonstrate not only a statistically significant result but also a clinically relevant effect size. Whereas standard hypothesis tests are used to demonstrate the former, it is less clear how the latter should be established. In the first part of this paper, we consider the responder analysis approach and study the performance of locally optimal rank tests when the outcome distribution is a mixture of responder and non-responder distributions. We find that these tests are quite sensitive to their planning assumptions and have therefore not really any advantage over standard tests such as the t-test and the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, which perform overall well and can be recommended for applications. In the second part, we present a new approach to the assessment of clinical relevance based on the so-called relative effect (or probabilistic index) and derive appropriate sample size formulae for the design of studies aiming at demonstrating both a statistically significant and clinically relevant effect. Referring to recent studies in multiple sclerosis, we discuss potential issues in the application of this approach. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Item Description:First published: 28 September 2012
Gesehen am 23.08.2018
Physical Description:Online Resource
ISSN:1097-0258
DOI:10.1002/sim.5634