Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32961361›Full record

ArticleContemporary clinical trials2020

Data monitoring committees for clinical trials evaluating treatments of COVID-19.

Tobias Mütze, Tim Friede

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Contemporary clinical trials, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact, top 89% of its field
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 0 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Data Monitoring Committee Reports: Telling the Data's Story.Therapeutic innovation & regulatory science · 2025
    Review
  3. Article
  4. Review
  5. On the role of data, statistics and decisions in a pandemic.Advances in statistical analysis : AStA : a journal of the German Statistical Society · 2022
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Guest editors-in-chief note to COVID-19 special issue.Contemporary clinical trials · 2021
    Article
  8. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Tobias MützeStatistical Methodology, Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland.
Tim FriedeDepartment of Medical Statistics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; DZHK (German Center for Cardiovascular Research), partner site Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany. Electronic address: tim.friede@med.uni-goettingen.de.
Novartis (Switzerland) · CHUniversitätsmedizin Göttingen · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The first cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were reported in December 2019 and the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 was declared a pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organization. This sparked a plethora of investigations into diagnostics and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2, as well as treatments for COVID-19. Since COVID-19 is a severe disease associated with a high mortality, clinical trials in this disease should be monitored by a data monitoring committee (DMC), also known as data safety monitoring board (DSMB). DMCs in this indication face a number of challenges including fast recruitment requiring an unusually high frequency of safety reviews, more frequent use of complex designs and virtually no prior experience with the disease. In this paper, we provide a perspective on the work of DMCs for clinical trials of treatments for COVID-19. More specifically, we discuss organizational aspects of setting up and running DMCs for COVID-19 trials, in particular for trials with more complex designs such as platform trials or adaptive designs. Furthermore, statistical aspects of monitoring clinical trials of treatments for COVID-19 are considered. Some recommendations are made regarding the presentation of the data, stopping rules for safety monitoring and the use of external data. The proposed stopping boundaries are assessed in a simulation study motivated by clinical trials in COVID-19.

Indexed as

Clinical Trials Data Monitoring CommitteesCOVID-19 Drug TreatmentCOVID-19 TestingVaccinationAdaptive Clinical Trials as TopicComputer SimulationCOVID-19Ethics Committees, ResearchHumansRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicResearch DesignSARS-CoV-2Adverse eventsData safety monitoring boardsPandemicRandomized controlled trialsSARS-CoV-2

Identifiers

PMID32961361
PMCPMC7833551
OpenAlexW3080190777

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.