SynthesisClinical trials (London, England)2026
Multiple imputation in clinical trials - what difference does it make? A systematic review of the impact of multiple imputation on treatment effect estimation.
Synthesis in Clinical trials (London, England), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
aimsMultiple imputation is often recommended over complete case analysis for handling missing data in clinical trials due to its ability to recover information from participants with incomplete data. While multiple imputation is generally held to be more efficient than complete case analysis, its planned use in clinical trials is typically not considered during sample size estimation. The standard approach of inflating the sample size for anticipated loss to follow-up is applicable for complete case analysis but could lead to excess power and hence inefficient resource use should multiple imputation be planned for analysis. In this article, we systematically reviewed published clinical trials with the aim of quantifying the precision advantages of multiple imputation over complete case analysis in treatment effect estimation, hence informing sample size planning for future trials.
methodsWe conducted a targeted review of clinical trials published between January 2019 and December 2023 in
resultsThe targeted search identified 547 articles, of which 59 satisfied eligibility criteria. Included trials tended to be large in size (median 653 participants) and reported a median of 8.6% missing data in the complete case analysis of the primary outcome (range 0.4%-30.5%). Multiple imputation was most frequently applied using chained equations under a missing at random assumption, with auxiliary variables included in the imputation model in most trials. The median design effect due to multiple imputation was 1.00 in both unadjusted (n = 15 trials) and covariate-adjusted analyses (n = 46 trials), suggesting multiple imputation typically was not offering precision advantages over complete case analysis. Similar design effects were observed in the untargeted review (median 0.96 and 1.01 for unadjusted and covariate-adjusted analyses), despite higher rates of missing data overall (median 15.7%, n = 49 trials). DISCUSSION: Multiple imputation did not consistently lead to more precise treatment effect estimates than complete case analysis in the trials included in the review. Findings should not be construed as an argument against the use of multiple imputation but suggest the standard approach of inflating the sample size for anticipated loss to follow-up is reasonable when multiple imputation is planned for analysis.
Indexed as
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.