Webinar: Dr Aritra Mukherjee – Adaptive designs for partially nested designs
Event Details
This webinar will explore adaptive trial designs for trials with partially nested structures, where clustering occurs in the intervention arm but not in the control arm. Such designs are common when interventions are delivered by study personnel or in group settings, yet methodological guidance on adaptive approaches remains limited. The webinar will examine how group sequential designs and sample size re-estimation (SSR) can be implemented and how to analyse them. It will present proposed methods for determining interim stopping boundaries, adjusting sample sizes, and updating the required number of clusters using interim variance estimates. Findings from proof-of-concept simulation studies will illustrate the impact of alternative recruitment strategies on statistical power, early stopping for efficacy, and Type I error control. The webinar will also discuss practical considerations for trial planning, including the potential bias in conventional treatment effect estimates and confidence intervals, highlighting the importance of careful simulation to support reliable adaptive trial design.
Speaker:
Dr Aritra Mukherjee is a Research Associate in the Biostatistics Research Group at Newcastle University, where her work focuses on innovative clinical trial methodology, particularly adaptive designs and platform trials. Her research interests include group-sequential methods, sample size re-estimation, platform trials, and the efficient design of trials when outcomes may be delayed. She completed her PhD in Biostatistics at Newcastle University in 2024. Her recent methodological work examines how interim information can guide trial decisions while maintaining appropriate statistical error rates, including in complex settings such as partially nested trials. Through methodological research and clinical trial simulation, Aritra has been supporting the careful planning and reliable implementation of adaptive designs in practice.
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