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Wang Z, Zhang J, Xia T, He R, Yan F. A Bayesian phase I-II clinical trial design to find the biological optimal dose on drug combination. J Biopharm Stat 2024; 34:582-595. [PMID: 37461311 DOI: 10.1080/10543406.2023.2236208] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2022] [Accepted: 07/09/2023] [Indexed: 05/29/2024]
Abstract
In recent years, combined therapy shows expected treatment effect as they increase dose intensity, work on multiple targets and benefit more patients for antitumor treatment. However, dose -finding designs for combined therapy face a number of challenges. Therefore, under the framework of phase I-II, we propose a two-stage dose -finding design to identify the biologically optimal dose combination (BODC), defined as the one with the maximum posterior mean utility under acceptable safety. We model the probabilities of toxicity and efficacy by using linear logistic regression models and conduct Bayesian model selection (BMS) procedure to define the most likely pattern of dose-response surface. The BMS can adaptively select the most suitable model during the trial, making the results robust. We investigated the operating characteristics of the proposed design through simulation studies under various practical scenarios and showed that the proposed design is robust and performed well.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ziqing Wang
- Research Center of Biostatistics and Computational Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P.R. China
| | - Jingyi Zhang
- Research Center of Biostatistics and Computational Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P.R. China
| | - Tian Xia
- Research Center of Biostatistics and Computational Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P.R. China
| | - Ruyue He
- Research Center of Biostatistics and Computational Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P.R. China
| | - Fangrong Yan
- Research Center of Biostatistics and Computational Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, P.R. China
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Kasianova K, Kelbert M, Mozgunov P. Response-adaptive randomization for multiarm clinical trials using context-dependent information measures. Biom J 2023; 65:e2200301. [PMID: 37816142 DOI: 10.1002/bimj.202200301] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2022] [Revised: 05/10/2023] [Accepted: 06/16/2023] [Indexed: 10/12/2023]
Abstract
Theoretical-information approach applied to the clinical trial designs appeared to bring several advantages when tackling a problem of finding a balance between power and expected number of successes (ENS). In particular, it was shown that the built-in parameter of the weight function allows finding the desired trade-off between the statistical power and number of treated patients in the context of small population Phase II clinical trials. However, in real clinical trials, randomized designs are more preferable. The goal of this research is to introduce randomization to a deterministic entropy-based sequential trial procedure generalized to multiarm setting. Several methods of randomization applied to an entropy-based design are investigated in terms of statistical power and ENS. Namely, the four design types are considered: (a) deterministic procedures, (b) naive randomization using the inverse of entropy criteria as weights, (c) block randomization, and (d) randomized penalty parameter. The randomized entropy-based designs are compared to randomized Gittins index (GI) and fixed randomization (FR). After the comprehensive simulation study, the following conclusion on block randomization is made: for both entropy-based and GI-based block randomization designs the degree of randomization induced by forward-looking procedures is insufficient to achieve a decent statistical power. Therefore, we propose an adjustment for the forward-looking procedure that improves power with almost no cost in terms of ENS. In addition, the properties of randomization procedures based on randomly drawn penalty parameter are also thoroughly investigated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ksenia Kasianova
- Faculty of Economics, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
| | - Mark Kelbert
- Faculty of Economics, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
| | - Pavel Mozgunov
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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Barnett HY, Villar SS, Geys H, Jaki T. A novel statistical test for treatment differences in clinical trials using a response-adaptive forward-looking Gittins Index Rule. Biometrics 2023; 79:86-97. [PMID: 34669968 PMCID: PMC7614356 DOI: 10.1111/biom.13581] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2020] [Accepted: 09/30/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The most common objective for response-adaptive clinical trials is to seek to ensure that patients within a trial have a high chance of receiving the best treatment available by altering the chance of allocation on the basis of accumulating data. Approaches that yield good patient benefit properties suffer from low power from a frequentist perspective when testing for a treatment difference at the end of the study due to the high imbalance in treatment allocations. In this work we develop an alternative pairwise test for treatment difference on the basis of allocation probabilities of the covariate-adjusted response-adaptive randomization with forward-looking Gittins Index (CARA-FLGI) Rule for binary responses. The performance of the novel test is evaluated in simulations for two-armed studies and then its applications to multiarmed studies are illustrated. The proposed test has markedly improved power over the traditional Fisher exact test when this class of nonmyopic response adaptation is used. We also find that the test's power is close to the power of a Fisher exact test under equal randomization.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sofía S Villar
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | | | - Thomas Jaki
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Medical and Pharmaceutical Statistics Research Unit, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
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Mozgunov P, Jaki T, Gounaris I, Goddemeier T, Victor A, Grinberg M. Practical implementation of the partial ordering continual reassessment method in a Phase I combination-schedule dose-finding trial. Stat Med 2022; 41:5789-5809. [PMID: 36428217 PMCID: PMC10100035 DOI: 10.1002/sim.9594] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2021] [Revised: 07/29/2022] [Accepted: 10/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
There is a growing medical interest in combining several agents and optimizing their dosing schedules in a single trial in order to optimize the treatment for patients. Evaluating at doses of several drugs and their scheduling in a single Phase I trial simultaneously possess a number of statistical challenges, and specialized methods to tackle these have been proposed in the literature. However, the uptake of these methods is slow and implementation examples of such advanced methods are still sparse to date. In this work, we share our experience of proposing a model-based partial ordering continual reassessment method (POCRM) design for three-dimensional dose-finding in an oncology trial. In the trial, doses of two agents and the dosing schedule of one of them can be escalated/de-escalated. We provide a step-by-step summary on how the POCRM design was implemented and communicated to the trial team. We proposed an approach to specify toxicity orderings and their a-priori probabilities, and developed a number of visualization tools to communicate the statistical properties of the design. The design evaluation included both a comprehensive simulation study and considerations of the individual trial behavior. The study is now enrolling patients. We hope that sharing our experience of the successful implementation of an advanced design in practice that went through evaluations of several health authorities will facilitate a better uptake of more efficient methods in practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pavel Mozgunov
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Thomas Jaki
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.,Computational Statistics Group, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
| | | | - Thomas Goddemeier
- Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Medical Writing, Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Anja Victor
- Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Medical Writing, Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Marianna Grinberg
- Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Medical Writing, Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.,Marianna Grinberg, Statistical Sciences and Innovation, UCB, Monheim, Germany
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Williamson SF, Jacko P, Jaki T. Generalisations of a Bayesian decision-theoretic randomisation procedure and the impact of delayed responses. Comput Stat Data Anal 2022; 174:107407. [PMID: 35698662 PMCID: PMC7612844 DOI: 10.1016/j.csda.2021.107407] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
The design of sequential experiments and, in particular, randomised controlled trials involves a trade-off between operational characteristics such as statistical power, estimation bias and patient benefit. The family of randomisation procedures referred to as Constrained Randomised Dynamic Programming (CRDP), which is set in the Bayesian decision-theoretic framework, can be used to balance these competing objectives. A generalisation and novel interpretation of CRDP is proposed to highlight its inherent flexibility to adapt to a variety of practicalities and align with individual trial objectives. CRDP, as with most response-adaptive randomisation procedures, hinges on the limiting assumption of patient responses being available before allocation of the next patient. This forms one of the greatest barriers to their implementation in practice which, despite being an important research question, has not received a thorough treatment. Therefore, motivated by the existing gap between the theory of response-adaptive randomisation (which is abundant with proposed methods in the immediate response setting) and clinical practice (in which responses are typically delayed), the performance of CRDP in the presence of fixed and random delays is evaluated. Simulation results show that CRDP continues to offer patient benefit gains over alternative procedures and is relatively robust to delayed responses. To compensate for a fixed delay, a method which adjusts the time horizon used in the optimisation objective is proposed and its performance illustrated.
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Affiliation(s)
- S. Faye Williamson
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, UK
- Biostatistics Research Group, Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University, UK
| | - Peter Jacko
- Department of Management Science, Lancaster University, UK
- Berry Consultants, UK
| | - Thomas Jaki
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, UK
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge University, UK
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Mozgunov P, Paoletti X, Jaki T. A benchmark for dose-finding studies with unknown ordering. Biostatistics 2022; 23:721-737. [PMID: 33409536 PMCID: PMC9291639 DOI: 10.1093/biostatistics/kxaa054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2020] [Revised: 09/25/2020] [Accepted: 11/09/2020] [Indexed: 01/31/2023] Open
Abstract
An important tool to evaluate the performance of a dose-finding design is the nonparametric optimal benchmark that provides an upper bound on the performance of a design under a given scenario. A fundamental assumption of the benchmark is that the investigator can arrange doses in a monotonically increasing toxicity order. While the benchmark can be still applied to combination studies in which not all dose combinations can be ordered, it does not account for the uncertainty in the ordering. In this article, we propose a generalization of the benchmark that accounts for this uncertainty and, as a result, provides a sharper upper bound on the performance. The benchmark assesses how probable the occurrence of each ordering is, given the complete information about each patient. The proposed approach can be applied to trials with an arbitrary number of endpoints with discrete or continuous distributions. We illustrate the utility of the benchmark using recently proposed dose-finding designs for Phase I combination trials with a binary toxicity endpoint and Phase I/II combination trials with binary toxicity and continuous efficacy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pavel Mozgunov
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
| | - Xavier Paoletti
- Université Versailles St Quentin & INSERM U900 STAMPM, Institut Curie, Paris, France
| | - Thomas Jaki
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK and MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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Ewings S, Saunders G, Jaki T, Mozgunov P. Practical recommendations for implementing a Bayesian adaptive phase I design during a pandemic. BMC Med Res Methodol 2022; 22:25. [PMID: 35057758 PMCID: PMC8771176 DOI: 10.1186/s12874-022-01512-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2021] [Accepted: 01/06/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Modern designs for dose-finding studies (e.g., model-based designs such as continual reassessment method) have been shown to substantially improve the ability to determine a suitable dose for efficacy testing when compared to traditional designs such as the 3 + 3 design. However, implementing such designs requires time and specialist knowledge. METHODS We present a practical approach to developing a model-based design to help support uptake of these methods; in particular, we lay out how to derive the necessary parameters and who should input, and when, to these decisions. Designing a model-based, dose-finding trial is demonstrated using a treatment within the AGILE platform trial, a phase I/II adaptive design for novel COVID-19 treatments. RESULTS We present discussion of the practical delivery of AGILE, covering what information was found to support principled decision making by the Safety Review Committee, and what could be contained within a statistical analysis plan. We also discuss additional challenges we encountered in the study and discuss more generally what (unplanned) adaptations may be acceptable (or not) in studies using model-based designs. CONCLUSIONS This example demonstrates both how to design and deliver an adaptive dose-finding trial in order to support uptake of these methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sean Ewings
- Southampton Clinical Trials Unit, University of Southampton, Mailpoint 131, Southampton General Hospital, Tremona Road, Southampton, SO16, UK.
| | - Geoff Saunders
- Southampton Clinical Trials Unit, University of Southampton, Mailpoint 131, Southampton General Hospital, Tremona Road, Southampton, SO16, UK
| | - Thomas Jaki
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK
| | - Pavel Mozgunov
- MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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Response adaptive designs for Phase II trials with binary endpoint based on context-dependent information measures. Comput Stat Data Anal 2021; 158:107187. [PMID: 34083846 PMCID: PMC7985674 DOI: 10.1016/j.csda.2021.107187] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
In many rare disease Phase II clinical trials, two objectives are of interest to an investigator: maximising the statistical power and maximising the number of patients responding to the treatment. These two objectives are competing, therefore, clinical trial designs offering a balance between them are needed. Recently, it was argued that response-adaptive designs such as families of multi-arm bandit (MAB) methods could provide the means for achieving this balance. Furthermore, response-adaptive designs based on a concept of context-dependent (weighted) information criteria were recently proposed with a focus on Shannon's differential entropy. The information-theoretic designs based on the weighted Renyi, Tsallis and Fisher informations are also proposed. Due to built-in parameters of these novel designs, the balance between the statistical power and the number of patients that respond to the treatment can be tuned explicitly. The asymptotic properties of these measures are studied in order to construct intuitive criteria for arm selection. A comprehensive simulation study shows that using the exact criteria over asymptotic ones or using information measures with more parameters, namely Renyi and Tsallis entropies, brings no sufficient gain in terms of the power or proportion of patients allocated to superior treatments. The proposed designs based on information-theoretical criteria are compared to several alternative approaches. For example, via tuning of the built-in parameter, one can find designs with power comparable to the fixed equal randomisation's but a greater number of patients responded in the trials.
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