[R] OT: Is randomization for targeted cancer therapies ethical?

[David Winsemius]

On Sep 20, 2010, at 2:28 PM, Charles C. Berry wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Sep 2010, Bert Gunter wrote:
>
>> Hi Folks:
>>
>> **Off Topic**
>>
>> Those interested in clinical trials may find the following of  
>> interest:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/health/research/19trial.html
>>
>> It concerns the ethicality of randomizing those with life-threatening
>> disease to relatively ineffective SOC when new "biologically  
>> targeted"
>> therapies "appear" to be more effective. While the context may be  
>> new,
>> the debate, itself, is not: Tukey wrote (or maybe it was talked -- I
>> can't remember for sure) about this about 30 years ago. I'm sure many
>> other also have done so.
>
> Anscombe's remarkable (and influential) review of Armitage's  
> 'Sequential Medical Trials' back in 1963
>
> 	http://www.jstor.org/stable/2283272
>

Not all university libraries have access via that link and efforts at  
identifying the citation in Pubmed failed, so could I request a more  
complete citation, please? Oh never mind I got it with Google. If  
anyone else needs the ISSN of JASA in which both the cited article and  
Armitage's reply appeared for the purposes of JSTOR access, it's  
01621459.

Sequential Medical Trials
F. J. Anscombe
Journal of the American Statistical Association
Vol. 58, No. 302 (Jun., 1963), pp. 365-383
Published by: American Statistical Association
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2283272

  Sequential Medical Trials: Some Comments on F. J. Anscombe's Paper
  P. Armitage
Journal of the American Statistical Association
Vol. 58, No. 302 (Jun., 1963), pp. 384-387
(article consists of 4 pages)
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2283273

-- 
David.
> is worth a look by any statistician who is interested in this topic.
>
> It makes explicit several factors that weigh in the ethical  
> assessment of a particular trial design.
>
> He discusses in formal terms the weighing of outcomes for patients  
> in the trial at hand aginst those of future patients and the impact  
> that this might have on design decisions.
>
> HTH,
>
> Chuck
>
>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Bert
>> -- 
>> Bert Gunter
>> Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
>>
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>
> Charles C. Berry                            (858) 534-2098
>                                            Dept of Family/Preventive  
> Medicine
> E mailto:cberry at tajo.ucsd.edu	            UC San Diego
> http://famprevmed.ucsd.edu/faculty/cberry/  La Jolla, San Diego  
> 92093-0901
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT