Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on the Clinical Trial Objective and Analysis of Oncology Clinical Trials—Application of the Estimand Framework. (1st October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Degtyarev, Evgeny; Rufibach, Kaspar; Shentu, Yue; Yung, Godwin; Casey, Michelle; Englert, Stefan; Liu, Feng; Liu, Yi; Sailer, Oliver; Siegel, Jonathan; Sun, Steven; Tang, Rui; Zhou, Jiangxiu
• Is Part Of: Statistics in biopharmaceutical research. Volume 12:Number 4(2020)
• Page Start: 427
• Page End: 437
• Publication Date: 2020-10-01
• Subjects: Coronavirus disease 2019 -- Estimand -- Oncology clinical trial -- Time-to-event; Pharmacy -- Statistical methods -- Periodicals; Pharmaceutical biotechnology -- Statistical methods -- Periodicals; Biopharmaceutics -- Periodicals; Biometry -- Periodicals; Pharmacy -- Statistical methods; Periodicals; 615.190727
• DOI: 10.1080/19466315.2020.1785543
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1946-6315

Abstract

Abstract : Abstract– Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has rapidly evolved into a global pandemic. The impact of COVID-19 on patient journeys in oncology represents a new risk to interpretation of trial results and its broad applicability for future clinical practice. We identify key intercurrent events (ICEs) that may occur due to COVID-19 in oncology clinical trials with a focus on time-to-event endpoints and discuss considerations pertaining to the other estimand attributes introduced in the ICH E9 addendum. We propose strategies to handle COVID-19 related ICEs, depending on their relationship with malignancy and treatment and the interpretability of data after them. We argue that the clinical trial objective from a world without COVID-19 pandemic remains valid. The estimand framework provides a common language to discuss the impact of COVID-19 in a structured and transparent manner. This demonstrates that the applicability of the framework may even go beyond what it was initially intended for.