Stat Med 2017[May]; 36 (10): 1568-79 PMID28098411show ga
The landscape for early phase cancer clinical trials is changing dramatically due to the advent of targeted therapy. Increasingly, new drugs are designed to work against a target such as the presence of a specific tumor mutation. Since typically only a small proportion of cancer patients will possess the mutational target, but the mutation is present in many different cancers, a new class of basket trials is emerging, whereby the drug is tested simultaneously in different baskets, i.e., sub-groups of different tumor types. Investigators not only desire to test whether the drug works, but also to determine which types of tumors are sensitive to the drug. A natural strategy is to conduct parallel trials, with the drug?s effectiveness being tested separately, using for example, the popular Simon two-stage design independently in each basket. The work presented is motivated by the premise that the efficiency of this strategy can be improved by assessing the homogeneity of the baskets? response rates at an interim analysis and aggregating the baskets in the second stage if the results suggest the drug might be effective in all or most baskets. Via simulations we assess the relative efficiencies of the two strategies. Since the operating characteristics depend on how many tumor types are sensitive to the drug, there is no uniformly efficient strategy. However, our investigation demonstrates substantial efficiencies are possible if the drug works in most or all baskets, at the cost of modest losses of power if the drug works in only a single basket.
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Stat+Med 2017 ; 36 (10): 1568-79
