----- Original Message -----
From: "Eduardo Bergel" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 12:27 PM
Subject: New Clinical Trial Simulator
> Please visit www.randomization.org <http://www.randomization.org/> for
more
> information and to download the simulator.
>
>
>
> What is the Clinical Trial Simulator (CTS)?
>
>
>
> A free software package that can simulate Randomized Controlled Clinical
> Trials (RCTs). With the CTS a user can explore aspects of the design,
> conduction and analyses of RCTs.
>
>
>
> How it works?
>
>
>
> Typically, the user conceives a trial, including patients subgroups,
sample
> size, outcome rates, effect size, lost to follow-up, patients compliance,
> etc. Then the program generates 1000s of such trials. A summary of the
> results is presented, including relative risks, relative risk reductions,
> confidence intervals, p-values, etc. A number of graphics is also
available.
>
>
>
> What can be used for?
>
>
>
> The CTS can be used for a number of different things:
>
>
>
> Learn how to analyze and report RCTs. The program tries to comply with the
> recommendations of the CONSORT statement when reporting the results of the
> trials.
>
> Explore the impact of sample size on study results. Can be also used as a
> sample size calculator, although it is not its main objective.
>
> Explore the potential impact of problems during the conduction of a trial.
> In the current version the user can define the proportion of patients that
> are lost-to-follow-up, and the proportion not complying with assigned
> intervention, in one or more populations subgroups.
>
>
>
> This program is one of the tools been developed by PRACTIHC (Pragmatic
> Randomized Controlled Trials In Health Care). Please visit the PRACTIHC
> website for more information (www.practihc.org).
>
>
>
> Current state
>
>
>
> The simulator is in Beta version, meaning that is under active
development,
> and might produce unexpected results.
>
>
>
> Funding
>
>
>
> The development of this simulator was partially supported by PRACTIHC
with
> funding from the European Commission's 5th Framework international
> collaboration with Developing Countries, Research Contract
> ICA4-CT-2001-10019, by the Latin American Center for Perinatology (CLAP -
> PAHO/WHO) and by the Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI) of the
> Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
>
>
>
> Development
>
>
>
> The simulator was inspired on a trial simulator developed by D.W. Taylor,
> E.G. Bosh and D. Sacket in 1990. (D.W. Taylor, E.G. Bosch. CTS: a clinical
> trials simulator, Statistics in Medicine, 9:787-801,1990).
>
>
>
> The CTS was developed by Eduardo Bergel and a team of programmers (Marcelo
> Delgado, Alvaro Ciganda and Martin Silva) at the Latin American Center for
> Perinatalogy, in Montevideo, Uruguay.
>
> The software was developed under Microsoft .NET using C#. It turn out
that
> there were no good graphic libraries in .NET and the graphics were
developed
> using and external, free graphic library (PLOTICUS).
|