Adaptive Allocation Designs for Normal and Binary Treatment Responses

Abstract

A class of adaptive designs is formulated in two stages for clinical trials to favour the better performing treatment for further allocation in an efficient way. The first stage of the allocation consists in randomizing subjects to each treatment arm with equal probability and performing a test of equality of treatment effects. The resulting p value and the available estimate of a treatment difference measure is used to assign the incoming second stage subjects. Considering binary and normal responses, several exact and asymptotic properties of the proposed allocation are thoroughly examined and compared with the existing allocation designs.