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Should the control arms of randomized trials have an expiry date?

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 19, pages 425–426 (2022)Cite this article

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Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are conducted when clinical equipoise between treatment options exists. However, some RCTs in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer continue to use chemotherapy as the control arm several years after chemotherapy was proven inferior to anti-PD-1 antibodies. Here, we highlight why the justifications for using an inferior treatment in the control arm are invalid and offer solutions that are applicable across tumour types.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to A. Robinson of the Department of Oncology, Queen’s University, Ontario for his thoughtful comments on this manuscript, for which he received no compensation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Adi Kartolo & Bishal Gyawali

  2. Cancer Centre of Southeastern Ontario, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Adi Kartolo & Bishal Gyawali

  3. Department of Public Health Sciences, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Bishal Gyawali

  4. Division of Cancer Care and Epidemiology, Queen’s University Cancer Research Institute, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Bishal Gyawali

Authors
  1. Adi Kartolo
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  2. Bishal Gyawali
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Correspondence to Bishal Gyawali.

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Competing interests

B.G. has acted as a consultant of Vivio Health. A.K. declares no competing interests.

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Kartolo, A., Gyawali, B. Should the control arms of randomized trials have an expiry date?. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 19, 425–426 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-022-00624-2

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