Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Designing a Clinical Trial in Palliative Care
The palliative care field is experiencing substantive growth in clinical trial-based research. Randomized controlled trials provide the necessary rigor and conditions for assessing a treatment's efficacy in a controlled population. It is therefore important that a trial is meticulously designed from the outset to ensure the integrity of the ultimate results. In this article, our team discusses ten tips on clinical trial design drawn from collective experiences in the field. These ten tips cover a range of topics that can prove challenging in trial design, from developing initial methodologies to planning sample size and powering the trial, as well as collaboratively navigating the ethical issues of trial initiation and implementation as a cohesive team. We aim to help new researchers design sound trials and continue to grow the evidence base for our specialty. The guidance provided here can be used independently or in addition to the ten tips provided by this team in a separate article focused on what palliative care clinicians should know about interpreting a clinical trial.
Authors
- William E. Rosa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0680-8911)
- Cian O’Leary (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5658-045X)
- Mellar P. Davis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7903-3993)
- Jennifer A. M. Philip (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3312-0645)
- Taylan Gurgenci (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9695-9109)
- David Hui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2733-6607)
- Sebastiano Mercadante (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9859-6487)
- Sriram Yennu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2910-8141)
- Camilla Zimmermann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4889-0244)
- Meera Agar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6756-6119)
- Janet Hardy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1127-9951)
- Phillip D. Good (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8198-0375)
- Eduardo Bruera
Institutions
- University of Technology Sydney (AU)
- Mater Health Services (AU)
- The Royal Melbourne Hospital (AU)
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (US)
- The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (US)
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (AU)
- Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (CA)
- St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne (AU)
- Mater Research (AU)
- St Vincent’s Private Hospital Brisbane (AU)
- European Association for Palliative Care (BE)
- La Maddalena (IT)
- Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Palliative Medicine
- Published
- 2024-08-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2024.0259
- Primary Topic
- Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00