ArticleMayo Clinic proceedings2016
Strength of Validation for Surrogate End Points Used in the US Food and Drug Administration's Approval of Oncology Drugs.
Article in Mayo Clinic proceedings, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Regulatory and clinical outcomes of priority-reviewed innovative cancer drugs in China between 2015 and 2024: an observational study.BMC cancer · 2025Pooled it
- Overall Survival Benefits of Cancer Drugs Approved in China From 2005 to 2020.JAMA network open · 2022Pooled it
- Evaluation of potential surrogate endpoints for prediction of overall survival in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer: trial-level meta-analysis.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2019Pooled it
- Evaluating Progression-Free Survival as a Surrogate Outcome for Health-Related Quality of Life in Oncology: A Systematic Review and Quantitative Analysis.JAMA internal medicine · 2018Pooled it
- Survival and Surrogate Biomarkers in Interventional Oncology Trials: Pitfalls, Challenges, and Future Directions.Cardiovascular and interventional radiology · 2026Review
- Rationale and Design of the Cancer Immunotherapy Evidence Living (CIEL) Library: A Continuously Updated Clinical Trial Database of Cancer Immunotherapies.Health science reports · 2026Article
- The evolution of cancer therapies and their Implications for health technology assessment in Australia.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2026Review
- Racial, ethnic, gender and age representation of clinical trials supporting FDA approval of cancer therapies.International journal for equity in health · 2026Article
- Comparison of the conditional approvals for anticancer drugs supported by single-arm trials in China and the United States: clinical evidence, post-marketing requirements, and regulatory outcomes.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- The Effect of Staging Intervals on Progression-Free Survival in Registration Studies of Oncologic Drugs: A Meta-Analysis.Cancers · 2025Article
- Characteristics, clinical evidence and implementation effects of conditional approvals for drugs in China, a pooled analysis from 2020 to 2023.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Modeling Overall Survival in Patients With Pancreatic Cancer From a Pooled Analysis of Phase II Trials.Cancer medicine · 2024Article
- Reporting of surrogate endpoints in randomised controlled trial protocols (SPIRIT-Surrogate): extension checklist with explanation and elaboration.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2024Article
- Reporting of surrogate endpoints in randomised controlled trial reports (CONSORT-Surrogate): extension checklist with explanation and elaboration.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2024Article
- Association of differential censoring with survival and suboptimal control arms among oncology clinical trials.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2024Article
- Clarifying Causal Effects of Interest and Underlying Assumptions in Randomized and Nonrandomized Clinical Trials in Oncology Using Directed Acyclic Graphs and Single-World Intervention Graphs.JCO clinical cancer informatics · 2024Article
- An empirical analysis of overall survival in drug approvals by the US FDA (2006-2023).Cancer medicine · 2024Article
- Pharmacological class effects of anticancer drugs: opportunities for decreasing healthcare spending.BMJ oncology · 2024Article
- Challenges, Complexities, and Considerations in the Design and Interpretation of Late-Phase Oncology Trials.Seminars in radiation oncology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo determine the strength of the surrogate-survival correlation for cancer drug approvals based on a surrogate. PARTICIPANTS AND
methodsWe performed a retrospective study of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) database, with focused searches of MEDLINE and Google Scholar. Among cancer drugs approved based on a surrogate end point, we examined previous publications assessing the strength of the surrogate-survival correlation. Specifically, we identified the percentage of surrogate approvals lacking any formal analysis of the strength of the surrogate-survival correlation, and when conducted, the strength of such correlations.
resultsBetween January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2014, the FDA approved marketing applications for 55 indications based on a surrogate, of which 25 were accelerated approvals and 30 were traditional approvals. We could not find any formal analyses of the strength of the surrogate-survival correlation in 14 out of 25 accelerated approvals (56%) and 11 out of 30 traditional approvals (37%). For accelerated approvals, just 4 approvals (16%) were made where a level 1 analysis (the most robust way to validate a surrogate) had been performed, with all 4 studies reporting low correlation (r≤0.7). For traditional approvals, a level 1 analysis had been performed for 15 approvals (50%): 8 (53%) reported low correlation (r≤0.7), 4 (27%) medium correlation (r>0.7 to r<0.85), and 3 (20%) high correlation (r≥0.85) with survival.
conclusionsThe use of surrogate end points for drug approval often lacks formal empirical verification of the strength of the surrogate-survival association.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.