The Theory of Response-Adaptive Randomization in Clinical Trials

<b>Presents a firm mathematical basis for the use of response-adaptive randomization procedures in practice</b> <p><i>The Theory of Response-Adaptive Randomization in Clinical Trials</i> is the result of the authors’ ten-year collaboration as well as their collaborations with other researchers in investigating the important questions regarding response-adaptive randomization in a rigorous mathematical framework. Response-adaptive allocation has a long history in biostatistics literature; however, largely due to the disastrous ECMO trial in the early 1980s, there is a general reluctance to use these procedures.</p> <p>This timely book represents a mathematically rigorous subdiscipline of experimental design involving randomization and answers fundamental questions, including:</p> <ul> <li>How does response-adaptive randomization affect power?</li> <li>Can standard inferential tests be applied following response-adaptive randomization?</li> <li>What is the effect of delayed response?</li> <li>Which procedure is most appropriate and how can “most appropriate” be quantified?</li> <li>How can heterogeneity of the patient population be incorporated?</li> <li>Can response-adaptive randomization be performed with more than two treatments or with continuous responses?</li> </ul> <p>The answers to these questions communicate a thorough understanding of the asymptotic properties of each procedure discussed, including asymptotic normality, consistency, and asymptotic variance of the induced allocation. Topical coverage includes:</p> <ul> <li>The relationship between power and response-adaptive randomization</li> <li>The general result for determining asymptotically best procedures</li> <li>Procedures based on urn models</li> <li>Procedures based on sequential estimation</li> <li>Implications for the practice of clinical trials</li> </ul> <p>Useful for graduate students in mathematics, statistics, and biostatistics as well as researchers and industrial and academic biostatisticians, this book offers a rigorous treatment of the subject in order to find the optimal procedure to use in practice.</p>