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Informative censoring — a neglected cause of bias in oncology trials

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From Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology

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Informative censoring occurs when progression-free survival is the primary end point of a randomized clinical trial and unequal patient dropout is observed between treatment arms owing to poorer tolerance of experimental treatment. Herein we discuss how informative censoring in the experimental arm before criteria for disease progression are met causes bias towards a positive result.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncology, St. Claraspital Basel, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Arnoud J. Templeton

  2. Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Arnoud J. Templeton

  3. Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Eitan Amir & Ian F. Tannock

Authors
  1. Arnoud J. Templeton
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  2. Eitan Amir
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  3. Ian F. Tannock
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Correspondence to Ian F. Tannock.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Templeton, A.J., Amir, E. & Tannock, I.F. Informative censoring — a neglected cause of bias in oncology trials. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 17, 327–328 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-020-0368-0

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