title: A homogeneity test in overviews with group sequentially monitored clinical trials.
abstract: It is known that using statistical stopping rules in clinical trials can create an artificial heterogeneity of treatment effects in overviews of related trials (Hughes, Freedman, and Pocock, 1992, Biometrics 48, 41-53). If the true treatment effect being tested is small, as is often the case, the homogeneity test by DerSimonian and Laird (1986, Controlled Clinical Trials 7, 177-188) violates the size of the test very severely. This paper provides a new homogeneity test, which preserves the size of the test more accurately. The operating characteristics of the new test are examined through simulations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biometrics and Statistical Sciences, Procter and Gamble Company, Mason, Ohio 45040, USA. li.z@pg.com
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D001699:Biometry; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D009010:Monte Carlo Method