title: New designs for clinical trials.
abstract: The pressures of ethics and equity on clinical trials have always been severe. The highest level of evidence about the usefulness of therapy is that obtained from well-planned, carefully conducted randomized, and where possible, double-blind clinical trials. Traditional frequentist statistics have been used predominantly, but a Bayesian approach may offer more flexibility by leveraging more information from the results of a clinical trial. Innovative designs can minimize the number of patients included in a trial and decrease the chance of maintaining a patient in an unfavorable treatment arm.
authors.affiliation: Intensive Care Department, Erasme University Hospital, Brussels, Belgium. cmelot@ulb.ac.be
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mélot
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods*