This book presents the state of the art of biostatistical methods and their applications in clinical oncology. Many methodologies established today in biostatistics have been brought about through its applications to the design and analysis of oncology clinical studies. This field of oncology, now in the midst of evolution owing to rapid advances in biotechnologies and cancer genomics, is becoming one of the most promising disease fields in the shift toward personalized medicine. Modern developments of diagnosis and therapeutics of cancer have also been continuously fueled by recent progress in establishing the infrastructure for conducting more complex, large-scale clinical trials and observational studies. The field of cancer clinical studies therefore will continue to provide many new statistical challenges that warrant further progress in the methodology and practice of biostatistics. This book provides a systematic coverage of various stages of cancer clinical studies. Topics from modern cancer clinical trials include phase I clinical trials for combination therapies, exploratory phase II trials with multiple endpoints/treatments, and confirmative biomarker-based phase III trials with interim monitoring and adaptation. It also covers important areas of cancer screening, prognostic analysis, and the analysis of large-scale molecular data in the era of big data.

Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials for Predictive Medicine provides statistical guidance on conducting clinical trials for predictive medicine. It covers statistical topics relevant to the main clinical research phases for developing molecular diagnostics and therapeutics-from identifying molecular biomarkers using DNA microarrays to confirming their clinical utility in randomized clinical trials. The foundation of modern clinical trials was laid many years before modern developments in biotechnology and genomics. Drug development in many diseases is now shifting to molecularly targeted treatment. Confronted with such a major break in the evolution toward personalized or predictive medicine, the methodologies for design and analysis of clinical trials is now evolving. This book is one of the first attempts to contribute to this evolution by laying a foundation for the use of appropriate statistical designs and methods in future clinical trials for predictive medicine. It is a useful resource for clinical biostatisticians, researchers focusing on predictive medicine, clinical investigators, translational scientists, and graduate biostatistics students.

Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials for Predictive Medicine provides statistical guidance on conducting clinical trials for predictive medicine. It covers statistical topics relevant to the main clinical research phases for developing molecular diagnostics and therapeutics-from identifying molecular biomarkers using DNA microarrays to confirming their clinical utility in randomized clinical trials. The foundation of modern clinical trials was laid many years before modern developments in biotechnology and genomics. Drug development in many diseases is now shifting to molecularly targeted treatment. Confronted with such a major break in the evolution toward personalized or predictive medicine, the methodologies for design and analysis of clinical trials is now evolving. This book is one of the first attempts to contribute to this evolution by laying a foundation for the use of appropriate statistical designs and methods in future clinical trials for predictive medicine. It is a useful resource for clinical biostatisticians, researchers focusing on predictive medicine, clinical investigators, translational scientists, and graduate biostatistics students.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to statistical methods for designing early phase dose-finding clinical trials. It will serve as a textbook or handbook for graduate students and practitioners in biostatistics and clinical investigators who are involved in designing, conducting, monitoring, and analyzing dose-finding trials. The book will also provide an overview of advanced topics and discussions in this field for the benefit of researchers in biostatistics and statistical science. Beginning with backgrounds and fundamental notions on dose finding in early phase clinical trials, the book then provides traditional and recent dose-finding designs of phase I trials for, e.g., cytotoxic agents in oncology, to evaluate toxicity outcome. Included are rule-based and model-based designs, such as 3 + 3 designs, accelerated titration designs, toxicity probability interval designs, continual reassessment method and related designs, and escalation overdose control designs. This book also covers more complex and updated dose-finding designs of phase I-II and I/II trials for cytotoxic agents, and cytostatic agents, focusing on both toxicity and efficacy outcomes, such as designs with covariates and drug combinations, maximum tolerated dose-schedule finding designs, and so on.

This book introduces readers to advanced statistical methods for analyzing survival data involving correlated endpoints. In particular, it describes statistical methods for applying Cox regression to two correlated endpoints by accounting for dependence between the endpoints with the aid of copulas. The practical advantages of employing copula-based models in medical research are explained on the basis of case studies. In addition, the book focuses on clustered survival data, especially data arising from meta-analysis and multicenter analysis. Consequently, the statistical approaches presented here employ a frailty term for heterogeneity modeling. This brings the joint frailty-copula model, which incorporates a frailty term and a copula, into a statistical model. The book also discusses advanced techniques for dealing with high-dimensional gene expressions and developing personalized dynamic prediction tools under the joint frailty-copula model. To help readers apply the statistical methods to real-world data, the book provides case studies using the authors' original R software package (freely available in CRAN). The emphasis is on clinical survival data, involving time-to-tumor progression and overall survival, collected on cancer patients. Hence, the book offers an essential reference guide for medical statisticians and provides researchers with advanced, innovative statistical tools. The book also provides a concise introduction to basic multivariate survival models.