Clinical trials: past, present and glorious future?

Wednesday 4th June 2014

A meeting to mark the centenary of the MRC Biostatistics Unit,

jointly organized by the Royal Statistical Society (Medical Section),

International Biometric Society (British and Irish Region) and

PSI (Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry).

 

The meeting preceeds the 2014 Bradford Hill lecture.

 

Wed 4th June

John Snow Lecture Theatre, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

 

Please note TWO tickets are required to attend the whole afternoon; one for 13.30-16.45, and one for the Bradford Hill lecture itself (16.45-18.00). Those without the second ticket for the Bradford Hill lecture cannot be guaranteed a place in the lecture theatre for the Bradford Hill lecture.

 

Cost: £25 for members (no discount for students on this occasion); £40 non members.

 

Students can join the BIR for free at bir.biometricsociety.org/membership

 

Registration (via the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Website) is open at  23rd-bradford-hill.eventbrite.co.uk/

 

 

Programme		Document downloads for IBS members. Join us now.
13.30 - 13.45	Welcome
13.45 - 14.20	Linda Sharples Clinical trials are not enough Clinical trials are undoubtedly useful but when we want to make decisions about treatment policies they provide only partial information about the question of interest. Combining clinical trials with other sources of observed or elicited information is necessary for a complete decision analysis but this involves further model assumptions. Some modelling approaches in this context are reviewed.	Sharples Slides
14.20 - 14.55	Stephen Senn Some are wise and some are otherwise: a defence of randomisation  The only guarantees that randomisation brings are guarantees in probability but to assume that that makes it valueless is to make the same error as supposing it is not in a casino's interest to have a fair roulette wheel. Confusion regarding this has led many to overlook what should be obvious.	Senn Slides
14.55 - 15.30	David Spiegelhalter Why aren't all clinical trials Bayesian? I shall attempt to answer this question, taking account of the limited impact of Bayesian methods over the last 30 years. I am inexorably led to another question: why should they be?"	Spiegelhalter Slides
15.30 - 16.00	Tea
16.00 - 16.20	Iain Chalmers UK Medical Research Council and Clinical Trials, 1934-1960	Chalmers Slides Chalmers Screencast (login to view)
16.20 - 16.45	Iain Chalmers and Peter Armitage in conversation with Vern Farewell.	Conversation Video (login to view)
16.45 - 17.00	Break
17.00 - 18.00	Bradford Hill Lecture: Stuart Pocock Controversies, calamities and celebrations in clinical trials research Do current clinical trials meet Society's needs? This critical review of recent practice, focussing on examples in cardiology, covers several controversies. While there's much to celebrate in clinical trials research there is also definite room for improvement.	Pocock Slides Pocock Screencast (login to view)
18.00	Wine reception