Trigger Strategy in Repeated Tests on Multiple Hypotheses

Abstract

The proposed trigger strategy is a general framework for a multistage statistical design with multiple hypotheses, allowing an adaptive selection of interim analyses. The selection of interim stages can be associated with some prespecified endpoints which serve as the trigger. This selection allows us to refine the critical boundaries in hypotheses testing procedures, and potentially increase the statistical power.

Keywords:

• Clinical trial
• Multiple tests
• Multistage designs
• Power
• Trigger

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Dana Sylvan, Olympia Hadjiliadis, Xiaojia Lu and Sean Ammirati for helpful discussion. Some preliminary results have been present at the ENAR 2019 Spring Meeting, Session 105 Biopharmaceutical research and clinical trials, Critical boundary refinement for the generalized partially hierarchical test procedure in group sequential trials on March 27, 2019. The authors thank the editor, associate editor, and two anonymous referees for suggestions that greatly improved this article.