ArticleEuropean journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990)2023
Prevalence and implications of significance testing for baseline covariate imbalance in randomised cancer clinical trials: The Table 1 Fallacy.
Article in European journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Prognostic Model-Guided Randomization Improves Efficiency in Early-Phase Trials: Evidence From Surveys and Simulations.Clinical and translational science · 2026Pooled it
- Del immune V and microbiome restructuring in colorectal cancer surgery: a randomized double blind placebo controlled trial.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Trial
- A Multimodal MRI-Based Model for Colorectal Liver Metastasis Prediction: Integrating Radiomics, Deep Learning, and Clinical Features with SHAP Interpretation.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2025Article
- Incomplete Toxicity Reporting and Use of Toxicity-Minimizing Language in Phase III Oncology Trials.JCO oncology practice · 2025Article
- Correlating Electrocardiograms with Echocardiographic Parameters in Hemodynamically-Significant Aortic Regurgitation Using Deep Learning.Acta Cardiologica Sinica · 2024Article
- Increasing Power in Phase III Oncology Trials With Multivariable Regression: An Empirical Assessment of 535 Primary End Point Analyses.JCO clinical cancer informatics · 2024Article
- Towards Treatment Effect Interpretability: A Bayesian Re-analysis of 194,129 Patient Outcomes Across 230 Oncology Trials.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe 'Table 1 Fallacy' refers to the unsound use of significance testing for comparing the distributions of baseline variables between randomised groups to draw erroneous conclusions about balance or imbalance. We performed a cross-sectional study of the Table 1 Fallacy in phase III oncology trials.
methodsFrom ClinicalTrials.gov, 1877 randomised trials were screened. Multivariable logistic regressions evaluated predictors of the Table 1 Fallacy.
resultsA total of 765 randomised controlled trials involving 553,405 patients were analysed. The Table 1 Fallacy was observed in 25% of trials (188 of 765), with 3% of comparisons deemed significant (59 of 2353), approximating the typical 5% type I error assertion probability. Application of trial-level multiplicity corrections reduced the rate of significant findings to 0.3% (six of 2345 tests). Factors associated with lower odds of the Table 1 Fallacy included industry sponsorship (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.29, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.18-0.47; multiplicity-corrected P < 0.0001), larger trial size (≥795 versus <280 patients; aOR 0.32, 95% CI 0.19-0.53; multiplicity-corrected P = 0.0008), and publication in a European versus American journal (aOR 0.06, 95% CI 0.03-0.13; multiplicity-corrected P < 0.0001).
conclusionsThis study highlights the persistence of the Table 1 Fallacy in contemporary oncology randomised controlled trials, with one of every four trials testing for baseline differences after randomisation. Significance testing is a suboptimal method for identifying unsound randomisation procedures and may encourage misleading inferences. Journal-level enforcement is a possible strategy to help mitigate this fallacy.
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