title: Likelihood and clinical trials.
abstract: The history of the application of statistical theory to the analysis of clinical trials is reviewed. The current orthodoxy is a somewhat illogical hybrid of the original theory of significance tests of Edgeworth, Karl Pearson, and Fisher, and the subsequent decision theory approach of Neyman, Egon Pearson, and Wald. This hegemony is under threat from Bayesian statisticians. A third approach is that of likelihood, stemming from the work of Fisher and Barnard. This approach is illustrated using hypothetical data from the Lancet articles by Bradford Hill, which introduced clinicians to statistical theory.
authors.affiliation: Research Department, Sisters of Charity of Ottawa Health Services Inc., 43 Bruyere Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Forbes
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kozak
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: MacNeill
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000266:history* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011336:Probability