Two-armed response-adaptive clinical trials are modelled as Markov decision problems to pursue two overriding objectives: Firstly, to identify the superior treatment at the end of the trial and, secondly, to keep the number of patients receiving the inferior treatment small. Such clinical trial designs are very important, especially for rare diseases. Thomas Ondra presents the main solution techniques for Markov decision problems and provides a detailed description how to obtain optimal allocation sequences.

About the Author
Thomas Ondra obtained his Master of Science degree in mathematics at University of Vienna. He is a research assistant and PhD student at the Section for Medical Statistics of Medical University of Vienna.

Reviews

"It is a remarkably concise exposition of the use of MDPs in a pharmaceutical setting; as such, the book's audience is the intersection of researchers and students with a sophisticated mathematical background and professionals in the pharmaceutical industry. ... the book is a very sophisticated treatise on MDP models for managing response-adaptive clinical trials and both mathematicians and pharmaceutical professionals would appreciate it." (James Smith, Interfaces, Vol. 45 (4), July-August, 2015)

Book Information
ISBN 9783658083434
Author Thomas Ondra
Format Paperback
Page Count 102
Imprint Springer Spektrum
Publisher Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden