scholarly journals Real-World Data for Planning Eligibility Criteria and Enhancing Recruitment: Recommendations from the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative

Author(s):  
Scott R. Evans ◽  
Dianne Paraoan ◽  
Jane Perlmutter ◽  
Sudha R. Raman ◽  
John J. Sheehan ◽  
...  

AbstractThe growing availability of real-world data (RWD) creates opportunities for new evidence generation and improved efficiency across the research enterprise. To varying degrees, sponsors now regularly use RWD to make data-driven decisions about trial feasibility, based on assessment of eligibility criteria for planned clinical trials. Increasingly, RWD are being used to support targeted, timely, and personalized outreach to potential trial participants that may improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruitment process. This paper highlights recommendations and resources, including specific case studies, developed by the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) for applying RWD to planning eligibility criteria and recruiting for clinical trials. Developed through a multi-stakeholder, consensus- and evidence-driven process, these actionable tools support researchers in (1) determining whether RWD are fit for purpose with respect to study planning and recruitment, (2) engaging cross-functional teams in the use of RWD for study planning and recruitment, and (3) understanding patient and site needs to develop successful and patient-centric approaches to RWD-supported recruitment. Future considerations for the use of RWD are explored, including ensuring full patient understanding of data use and developing global datasets.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Xu ◽  
Hao Zhang ◽  
Hansi Zhang ◽  
Jiang Bian ◽  
Fei Wang

Restrictive eligibility criteria for clinical trials may limit the generalizability of treatment effectiveness and safety to real-world patients. In this paper, we propose a machine learning approach to derive patient subgroups from real-world data (RWD), such that the patients within the same subgroup share similar clinical characteristics and safety outcomes. The effectiveness of our approach was validated on two existing clinical trials with the electronic health records (EHRs) from a large clinical research network. One is the donepezil trial for Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the other is the Bevacizumab trial on colon cancer (CRC). The results show that our proposed algorithm can identify patient subgroups with coherent clinical manifestations and similar risk levels of encountering severe adverse events (SAEs). We further exemplify that potential rules for describing the patient subgroups with less SAEs can be derived to inform the design of clinical trial eligibility criteria.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 6540-6540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Savage Bennette ◽  
Nathan Coleman Nussbaum ◽  
Melissa D. Curtis ◽  
Neal J. Meropol

6540 Background: RCTs are the gold standard for understanding the efficacy of new treatments, however, patients (pts) in RCTs often differ from those treated in the real-world. Further, selecting a standard of care (SOC) arm is challenging as treatment options may evolve during the course of a RCT. Our objective was to assess the generalizability and relevance of RCTs supporting recent FDA approvals of anticancer therapies. Methods: RCTs were identified that supported FDA approvals of anticancer therapies (1/1/2016 - 4/30/2018). Relevant pts were selected from the Flatiron Health longitudinal, EHR-derived database, where available. Two metrics were calculated: 1) a trial’s pt generalizability score (% of real-world pts receiving treatment consistent with the control arm therapy for the relevant indication who actually met the trial's eligibility criteria) and 2) a trial’s SOC relevance score (% of real-world pts with the relevant indication and meeting the trial's eligibility criteria who actually received treatment consistent with the control arm therapy). All analyses excluded real-world pts treated after the relevant trial’s enrollment ended. Results: 14 RCTs across 5 cancer types (metastatic breast, advanced non-small cell lung cancer, metastatic renal cell carcinoma, multiple myeloma, and advanced urothelial) were included. There was wide variation in the SOC relevance and pt generalizability scores. The median pt generalizability score was 63% (range 35% - 88%), indicating that most real-world pts would have met the RCT eligibility criteria. The median SOC relevance score was 37% (range 15% - 74%), indicating that most RCT control arms did not reflect the way trial-eligible real-world pts in the US were actually treated. Conclusions: There is great variability across recent RCTs in terms of pt generalizability and relevance of SOC arms. Real-world data can be used to inform selection of control arms, predict impact of inclusion/exclusion criteria, and also assess the generalizability of the results of completed trials. Incorporating real-world data in planning and interpretation of prospective clinical trials could improve accrual and enhance relevance of RCT outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 017-026
Author(s):  
Georg Melzer ◽  
Tim Maiwald ◽  
Hans-Ulrich Prokosch ◽  
Thomas Ganslandt

Abstract Background Even though clinical trials are indispensable for medical research, they are frequently impaired by delayed or incomplete patient recruitment, resulting in cost overruns or aborted studies. Study protocols based on real-world data with precisely expressed eligibility criteria and realistic cohort estimations are crucial for successful study execution. The increasing availability of routine clinical data in electronic health records (EHRs) provides the opportunity to also support patient recruitment during the prescreening phase. While solutions for electronic recruitment support have been published, to our knowledge, no method for the prioritization of eligibility criteria in this context has been explored. Methods In the context of the Electronic Health Records for Clinical Research (EHR4CR) project, we examined the eligibility criteria of the KATHERINE trial. Criteria were extracted from the study protocol, deduplicated, and decomposed. A paper chart review and data warehouse query were executed to retrieve clinical data for the resulting set of simplified criteria separately from both sources. Criteria were scored according to disease specificity, data availability, and discriminatory power based on their content and the clinical dataset. Results The study protocol contained 35 eligibility criteria, which after simplification yielded 70 atomic criteria. For a cohort of 106 patients with breast cancer and neoadjuvant treatment, 47.9% of data elements were captured through paper chart review, with the data warehouse query yielding 26.9% of data elements. Score application resulted in a prioritized subset of 17 criteria, which yielded a sensitivity of 1.00 and specificity 0.57 on EHR data (paper charts, 1.00 and 0.80) compared with actual recruitment in the trial. Conclusion It is possible to prioritize clinical trial eligibility criteria based on real-world data to optimize prescreening of patients on a selected subset of relevant and available criteria and reduce implementation efforts for recruitment support. The performance could be further improved by increasing EHR data coverage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Sen Andrew Fang ◽  
Qiao Gao ◽  
Mong Li Lee ◽  
Wynne Hsu ◽  
Ngiap Chuan Tan

Abstract Background Clinical trials have demonstrated that either initiating or up-titrating a statin dose substantially reduce Low-Density Lipoprotein-Cholesterol (LDL-C) levels. However, statin adherence in actual practice tends to be suboptimal, leading to diminished effectiveness. This study aims to use real-world data to determine the effect on LDL-C levels and LDL-C goal attainment rates, when selected statins are titrated in Asian patients. Methods A retrospective cohort study over a 5-year period, from April 2014 to March 2019 was conducted on a cohort of multi-ethnic adult Asian patients with clinical diagnosis of Dyslipidaemia in a primary care clinic in Singapore. The statins were classified into low-intensity (LI), moderate-intensity (MI) and high-intensity (HI) groups according to the 2018 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Blood Cholesterol Guidelines. Patients were grouped into “No statin”, “Non-titrators” and “Titrators” cohorts based on prescribing patterns. For the “Titrators” cohort, the mean percentage change in LDL-C and absolute change in LDL-C goal attainment rates were computed for each permutation of statin intensity titration. Results Among the cohort of 11,499 patients, with a total of 266,762 visits, there were 1962 pairs of LDL-C values associated with a statin titration. Initiation of LI, MI and HI statin resulted in a lowering of LDL-C by 21.6% (95%CI = 18.9–24.3%), 28.9% (95%CI = 25.0–32.7%) and 25.2% (95%CI = 12.8–37.7%) respectively. These were comparatively lower than results from clinical trials (30 to 63%). The change of LDL-C levels due to up-titration, down-titration, and discontinuation were − 12.4% to − 28.9%, + 13.2% to + 24.6%, and + 18.1% to + 32.1% respectively. The improvement in LDL-C goal attainment ranged from 26.5% to 47.1% when statin intensity was up-titrated. Conclusion In this study based on real-world data of Asian patients in primary care, it was shown that although statin titration substantially affected LDL-C levels and LDL-C goal attainment rates, the magnitude was lower than results reported from clinical trials. These results should be taken into consideration and provide further insight to clinicians when making statin adjustment recommendations in order to achieve LDL-C targets in clinical practice, particularly for Asian populations.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivek A. Rudrapatna ◽  
Benjamin S. Glicksberg ◽  
Atul J. Butte

AbstractBackgroundReal-world data are receiving attention from regulators, biopharmaceuticals and payors as a potential source of clinical evidence. However, the suitability of these data to produce evidence commensurate with randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and the best practices in their use remain unclear. We sought to compare the real-world effectiveness of Tofacitinib in the treatment of IBD against efficacy rates published by corresponding RCTs.MethodsElectronic health records at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) were queried and reviewed to identify 86 Tofacitinib-treated IBD patients through 4/2019. The primary endpoint was treatment effectiveness. This was measured by time-to-treatment-discontinuation and by the primary endpoints of RCTs in Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s Disease (CD). Endpoints were measured and analyzed following a previously published protocol and analysis plan.Findings86 patients (68 with UC, 18 with CD) initiated Tofacitinib for IBD treatment. Most of the data needed to calculate baseline and follow-up disease activity indices were documented within the EHR(77% for UC, 91% for CD). Baseline characteristics of the UCSF and RCT cohorts were similar, except for a longer disease duration and 100% treatment failure of Tumor Necrosis Factor inhibitors in the former. None of the UCSF cohort would have met the RCT eligibility criteria due to multiple reasons.The rate of achieving the RCT primary endpoints were highly similar to the published rates for both UC(16%, P=0·5) and CD (38%, P=0·8). However, treatment persistence was substantially higher: 69% for UC (week 52) and 75% for CD (week 26).InterpretationAn analysis of routinely collected clinical data can reproduce published Tofacitinib efficacy rates, but also indicates far greater treatment durability than suggested by RCTs including possible benefit in CD. These results underscore the value of real-world studies to complement RCTs.FundingThe National Institutes of Health and UCSF Bakar InstituteResearch in ContextEvidence before this studyTofacitinib is the most recently approved treatment for Ulcerative Colitis. Data related to treatment efficacy for either IBD subtype is generally limited, whether from controlled trials or real-world studies. A search of clinicaltrials.gov was performed in January 2019 for completed phase 2 or 3, interventional, placebo-controlled clinical trials matching the terms “Crohn’s Disease” OR “Ulcerative Colitis” in the conditions field, and matching “Placebo” AND “Tofacitinib” OR “CP-690,550”) in the Interventions field. We identified three Phase 3 trials for UC (OCTAVE trials, all initially reported in a single article in 2016) and three Phase 2 trials of CD (two published in the same article in 2017, one reported in 2014). The Phase 3 UC trials reported 57·6% pooled clinical response rate in the Tofacitinib-assigned groups after 8 weeks (induction), and a 37·5% pooled remission rate among eligible induction trial responders in the Tofacitinib-assigned groups at 52 weeks. The 2017 CD trial reported a 70·8% pooled rate of response or remission in the Tofacitinib-assigned groups after 8 weeks, and a 47·6% pooled rate of response or remission among enrolled induction-trial responders at 26 weeks. A bias assessment of both UC and CD trials indicated a high risk of attrition bias and unclear risk of bias related to conflicts of interest. We also performed a search of pubmed.gov in January 2019 using search terms (“Colitis” OR “Crohn’s”) AND (“Tofacitinib” OR “CP-690,550”) OR “real-world” to identify cohort studies of Tofacitinib efficacy in routine clinical practice. No studies meeting these criteria were identified.Added value of this studyThis is one of the early studies to closely compare the results of clinical trials with the continuously-updated data captured in the electronic health records, and the very the first to assess the efficacy-effectiveness gap for Tofacitinib. We found that none of the patients treated at our center thus far would have qualified for the clinical trial based on published eligibility criteria. We found that the drug appeared to perform similarly to its efficacy when using the endpoints reported in clinical trials, but treatment persistence was significantly greater than would have been expected from the reported trial outcomes: 69% for UC at week 52 and 75% for CD at week 26.Implications of all the available evidenceTofacitinib is an effective treatment for the Ulcerative colitis and may be efficacious for Crohn’s disease. Controlled trials may not be representative of real-world cohorts, may not be optimally designed to identify efficacious drugs, and may not accurately predict patterns of use in clinical practice. Further studies using real-world data as well as methods to enable their proper use are needed to confirm and continuously monitor the efficacy and safety of drugs, both for on- and off-label use.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphna Laifenfeld ◽  
Chen Yanover ◽  
Michal Ozery-Flato ◽  
Oded Shaham ◽  
Michal Rozen-Zvi ◽  
...  

AbstractReal-world healthcare data hold the potential to identify therapeutic solutions for progressive diseases by efficiently pinpointing safe and efficacious repurposing drug candidates. This approach circumvents key early clinical development challenges, particularly relevant for neurological diseases, concordant with the vision of the 21stCentury Cures Act. However, to-date, these data have been utilized mainly for confirmatory purposes rather than as drug discovery engines. Here, we demonstrate the usefulness of real-world data in identifying drug repurposing candidates for disease-modifying effects, specifically candidate marketed drugs that exhibit beneficial effects on Parkinson’s disease (PD) progression. We performed an observational study in cohorts of ascertained PD patients extracted from two large medical databases, Explorys SuperMart (N=88,867) and IBM MarketScan Research Databases (N=106,395); and applied two conceptually different, well-established causal inference methods to estimate the effect of hundreds of drugs on delaying dementia onset as a proxy for slowing PD progression. Using this approach, we identified two drugs that manifested significant beneficial effects on PD progression in both datasets: rasagiline, narrowly indicated for PD motor symptoms; and zolpidem, a psycholeptic. Each confers its effects through distinct mechanisms, which we explored via a comparison of estimated effects within the drug classification ontology. We conclude that analysis of observational healthcare data, emulating otherwise costly, large, and lengthy clinical trials, can highlight promising repurposing candidates, to be validated in prospective registration trials, for common, late-onset progressive diseases for which disease-modifying therapeutic solutions are scarce.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 5074-5074
Author(s):  
Harshraj Leuva ◽  
Mengxi Zhou ◽  
Julia Wilkerson ◽  
Keith Sigel ◽  
Ta-Chueh Hsu ◽  
...  

5074 Background: Novel assessments of efficacy are needed to improve determination of treatment outcomes in clinical trials and in real-world settings. Methods: Cancer treatments usually lead to concurrent regression and growth of the drug-sensitive and drug-resistant fractions of a tumor, respectively. We have exploited novel methods of analysis that assess these two simultaneous processes and have estimated rates of tumor growth ( g) and regression ( d) in over 30,000 patients (pts) with diverse tumors. Results: In prostate cancer (PC) we have analyzed both clinical trial and real-world data from Veterans. Using clinical trial data from 6819 pts enrolled in 15 treatment arms we have established separately and by combining all the data that g correlates highly (p<0.0001) with overall survival (OS) – slower g associated with better OS. In PC, abiraterone (ABI) and docetaxel (DOC) are superior to placebo, prednisone and mitoxantrone. ABI (median g =0.0017) is superior to DOC ( g=0.0021) in first line (p=0.0013); and ABI in 2nd line ( g=0.0034) is inferior to ABI in 1st line ( g=0.0017; p<0.0001). Finally, using combined clinical trial data as a benchmark we could assess the efficacy of novel therapies in as few as 30-40 patients. Amongst 7457 Veterans, the median g on a taxane ( g=0.0022) was similar to that from clinical trials ( g=0.0012). Although only 258 Veterans received cabazitaxel (CAB), g values for CAB ( g=0.0018) and DOC ( g=0.0023) were indistinguishable (p=0.3) consistent with their identical mechanism of action. Finally, outcomes with DOC in African American (AA) ( g=0.00212) and Caucasian ( g=0.00205) Veterans were indistinguishable (p=0.9) and comparable across all VAMCs. Conclusions: The rate of tumor growth, g, is an excellent biomarker for OS both in clinical trials and in real-world settings. g allows comparisons between trials and for large trial data sets to be used as benchmarks of efficacy. Real-world outcomes in the VAMCs are similar to those in clinical trials. In the egalitarian VAMCs DOC efficacy in PC is comparable in AA and Caucasian Veterans -- indicating inferior outcomes reported in AAs are likely due to differential health care access, not differences in biology.


2022 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy A. Yap ◽  
Ira Jacobs ◽  
Elodie Baumfeld Andre ◽  
Lauren J. Lee ◽  
Darrin Beaupre ◽  
...  

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that assess overall survival are considered the “gold standard” when evaluating the efficacy and safety of a new oncology intervention. However, single-arm trials that use surrogate endpoints (e.g., objective response rate or duration of response) to evaluate clinical benefit have become the basis for accelerated or breakthrough regulatory approval of precision oncology drugs for cases where the target and research populations are relatively small. Interpretation of efficacy in single-arm trials can be challenging because such studies lack a standard-of-care comparator arm. Although an external control group can be based on data from other clinical trials, using an external control group based on data collected outside of a trial may not only offer an alternative to both RCTs and uncontrolled single-arm trials, but it may also help improve decision-making by study sponsors or regulatory authorities. Hence, leveraging real-world data (RWD) to construct external control arms in clinical trials that investigate the efficacy and safety of drug interventions in oncology has become a topic of interest. Herein, we review the benefits and challenges associated with the use of RWD to construct external control groups, and the relevance of RWD to early oncology drug development.


Blood ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 132 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 5045-5045
Author(s):  
Michael Wang ◽  
Beng Fuh ◽  
Philip Maes ◽  
Maria Eva Mingot-Castellano ◽  
Rubén Berrueco ◽  
...  

Abstract BACKGROUND: BAY 81-8973 (Kovaltry®, Bayer) is an unmodified full-length recombinant FVIII indicated for prophylaxis and treatment of bleeds in patients with hemophilia A; BAY 81-8973 was launched in 2016 and has since accumulated 6765 patient-years of exposure. The TAURUS study (NCT02830477) was established to investigate BAY 81-8973 prophylaxis dosing regimens chosen in clinical practice and confirm the established safety and efficacy results from the LEOPOLD clinical trials in a real world setting. OBJECTIVES: To analyse the proportion of patients on specific BAY 81-8973 prophylaxis regimens, bleeds, and patient-reported outcomes at baseline and most recent follow-up. METHODS: TAURUS is an international, open label, prospective, non-interventional, single arm study with a target recruitment of 350 previously treated patients with hemophilia A of all ages with moderate or severe hemophilia A (≤ 5% FVIII:C) with ≥ 50 exposure days to any FVIII product who have been switched to prophylaxis with BAY 81-8973. At baseline, physicians document clinical information including age, BMI, severity of hemophilia, number of target joints, prior treatment regimen, bleed history, inhibitor history, and reason for choosing a specific prophylaxis regimen. Patients/caregivers reported bleeds in ongoing patient diaries, and completed questionnaires on treatment satisfaction (HEMOSAT) and adherence (VERITAS-PRO) at baseline and follow-up. A scheduled interim analysis (30% of patients recruited) was conducted with data collected up to 2 July 2018. RESULTS: At the cut-off, 160 enrolled patients were included in the baseline analysis set, of whom 89 had ≥ 6 months of follow-up data available (median observation period 201 days), 33% of whom had completed one year of the study. Median (range) patient age was 22 (2‒69) years, time since diagnosis was 15 (0.5‒64) years, and most patients (76/89, 85%) had baseline FVIII level of <1%. Treatment assignments are shown in the table. All patients had received pre-study prophylaxis, for a median of 15 years, with 66% of patients using rFVIII-FS as their most recent FVIII treatment prior to BAY 81-8973. Most (91%) had been treated with BAY 81-8973 for <3 months prior to study entry. Pre-study, 72% of patients were treated ≥3 times per week (xW). At baseline, most patients (59%) were assigned treatment ≥3xW (every day, 1%; every other day, 16%; 3xW, 41%). The majority remained on their previous regimen (78% on ≤2xW and 97% on ≥3xW); any changes were mainly a reduction in frequency on BAY 81-8973 vs previous treatment (22%), with only 2% increasing frequency on BAY 81-8973. At last follow up, most patients remained on the same regimen: 60% on ≥3xW (≥ every other day, 17%; 3xW, 42%). Most patients (92%) did not alter their dosing frequency. Of the 8% who changed dosing frequency, the majority (6 patients) changed from ≥3xW to ≤2xW; 1 patient changed from ≤2xW to ≥3xW. The median prescribed weekly dose was 52 IU/kg (64 IU/kg for ≥3xW and 43 IU/kg for ≤2xW) on study, slightly lower than those with previous product: 56 IU/Kg overall, 64 IU/kg for ≥3xW and 50 IU/kg for ≤2xW. Median (Q1; Q3) patient diary-reported annualized joint bleed rates were 1.5 (0.0; 5.3), 1.2 (0.0; 5.3) and 1.4 (0.0; 6.1); for ≤2xW, ≥3xW, and all patients, respectively. HEMO-SAT and VERITAS-PRO data will be presented in the poster. No recruited patients developed inhibitors with BAY 81-8973. CONCLUSIONS: These real-world data from 89 patients show that the range of dosing options available for BAY 81-8973 allowed the majority of patients to become established quickly on this treatment upon switching. In the few instances where patients changed dosing frequency either upon switching to BAY 81-8973 or once established on treatment, most moved to less frequent treatment. Joint bleeding rates confirm and extend findings from the clinical trials and speak to effective bleeding prophylaxis with BAY 81-8973 in a real-world setting. Therefore, BAY 81-8973 treatment may be successfully individualized according to patient need and disease characteristics. Disclosures Wang: Terumo BCT: Other: CPC Clinical Research; CSL Behring: Consultancy; Bayer, Bioverative, Novo Nordisk, Octapharma, Shire, Genentech, Biomarain, Pfizer, CSL Behring, HEMA Biologics, Daiichi Sankyo: Research Funding; Bayer: Consultancy; Bayer, Novo Nordisk, Octapharma, Genentech, HEMA Biologics, Shire, CSL Behring: Honoraria; Novo Nordisk: Consultancy. Maes:Bayer: Honoraria. Rauchensteiner:Bayer: Employment.


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