Sunday, November 27, 2011

Reporting/recording the Serious Adverse Events (SAE) vs. Adverse Event (AE) Outcomes

In clinical trials, the serious adverse event reporting is critical to the safety assessment and to fulfill the regulatory requirements. The criteria for defining an SAE have been documented in many regulatory guidelines. However, in clinical trial implementation, the confusion could arise whether or not an event should be reported as an SAE or outcome of an SAE. Misinterpretation of the regulatory guidelines could cause in the inappropriate reporting of SAEs.

Acording to ICH E2A “CLINICAL SAFETY DATA MANAGEMENT: DEFINITIONS AND STANDARDS FOR EXPEDITED REPORTING

                  A serious adverse event (experience) or reaction is any untoward medical occurrence that at any dose:                          * results in death,
                         * is life-threatening,
                             NOTE: The term "life-threatening" in the definition of "serious" refers to an event in which the patient was at 

                             risk of death at the time of the event; it does not refer to an event which hypothetically might have caused death
                             if it were more severe.
                         * requires inpatient hospitalisation or prolongation of existing hospitalisation,
                         * results in persistent or significant disability/incapacity, or
                         * is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.
FDA website has provided a little bit more detail descriptions on SAE
"What is a Serious Adverse Event?

An adverse event is any undesirable experience associated with the use of a medical product in a patient. The event is serious and should be reported to FDA when the patient outcome is:
Death

Report if you suspect that the death was an outcome of the adverse event, and include the date if known.
Life-threatening

Report if suspected that the patient was at substantial risk of dying at the time of the adverse event, or use or continued use of the device or other medical product might have resulted in the death of the patient.
Hospitalization (initial or prolonged)

Report if admission to the hospital or prolongation of hospitalization was a result of the adverse event.

Emergency room visits that do not result in admission to the hospital should be evaluated for one of the other serious outcomes (e.g., life-threatening; required intervention to prevent permanent impairment or damage; other serious medically important event).
Disability or Permanent Damage

Report if the adverse event resulted in a substantial disruption of a person's ability to conduct normal life functions, i.e., the adverse event resulted in a significant, persistent or permanent change, impairment, damage or disruption in the patient's body function/structure, physical activities and/or quality of life.
Congenital Anomaly/Birth Defect

Report if you suspect that exposure to a medical product prior to conception or during pregnancy may have resulted in an adverse outcome in the child.
Required Intervention to Prevent Permanent Impairment or Damage (Devices)

Report if you believe that medical or surgical intervention was necessary to preclude permanent impairment of a body function, or prevent permanent damage to a body structure, either situation suspected to be due to the use of a medical product.
Other Serious (Important Medical Events)

Report when the event does not fit the other outcomes, but the event may jeopardize the patient and may require medical or surgical intervention (treatment) to prevent one of the other outcomes. Examples include allergic brochospasm (a serious problem with breathing) requiring treatment in an emergency room, serious blood dyscrasias (blood disorders) or seizures/convulsions that do not result in hospitalization. The development of drug dependence or drug abuse would also be examples of important medical events."


The standard coding dictionary for adverse events is MedDRA (Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities). The guidance document MedDRA® TERM SELECTION: POINTS TO CONSIDER gives clear explanation how death and other patient outcomes should be handled.

3.2 – Death and Other Patient Outcomes

Death, disability, and hospitalization are considered outcomes in the context of safety reporting and not usually considered ARs/AEs. Outcomes are typically recorded in a separate manner (data field) from AR/AE information. A term for the outcome should be selected if it is the only information reported or provides significant clinical information.

(For reports of suicide and self-harm, see Section 3.3).

3.2.1 Death with ARs/AEs

Death is an outcome and not usually considered an AR/AE. If ARs/AEs are reported along with death, select terms for the ARs/AEs. Record the fatal outcome in an appropriate data field.


3.2.4 Other patient outcomes (non-fatal)

Hospitalization, disability and other patient outcomes are not generally considered ARs/AEs.

There are many other examples in terms of recording the outcome instead of AE/SAE. Adverse events represent the untoward medical event, not the intervention to treat that event. For example, if a subject has appendectomy, the AE is appendicitis not the surgical procedure; if a subject has an limb amputation, the AE is the cause for amputation (perhaps, the worsening of the ischemia in the peripheral artery) and limb amputation should be reported as the outcome of the AE/SAE; If a patient is hospitalized due to congestive heart failure, congestive heart failure should be reported SAE and hospitalization should be reported as an outcome for congestive heart failure.  
We should also be aware that not every hospitalization will have an associated SAE to be reported. Any AE leading to hospitalization or prolongation of hospitalization meets ONE of the followings should not be reported as SAE.
  • A hospitalization admission is pre-planned (ie, elective or scheduled surgery arranged prior to the start of the study). European Commission’s guidelines on medical devices “CLINICAL INVESTIGATIONS: SERIOUS ADVERSE EVENT REPORTING “ indicated that a planned hospitalization for pre-existing condition, or a procedure required by the Clinical Investigation Plan, without a serious deterioration in health, is not considered to be a serious adverse event.
  • A hospitalization admission is clearly not associated with an AE (eg, social hospitalization for purposes of respite care). If a patient wants to be stay in the hospital during the drug treatment because of the fear that something bad could happen, this should not be reported as SAE just because of the hospital stay if nothing else happens
According to these definitions, the events with outcome of death, hospitalization, disability or permanent damage, congenital anomaly/birth defect, … should be reported as SAE while death, hospitalization, disability or permanent damage, congenital anomaly/birth defect…should be reported as the outcome of the corresponding SAE. To be crystal clear, the Death, Hospitalization should not be reported as SAE and the causes leading to the death and hospitalization should be reported as SAE.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Studentized residual for detecting outliers

Last time, I discussed the outliers and a simple approach of Dixon’s Q test for detecting a single outlier. When there are multiple outliers, we can detect the outliers using the standard deviation (for data that is normal distributed) or using percentiles (for the skewed data). A box plot may be useful to visually check the data for potential outliers.

In regression setting, there are several approaches in detecting the outliers. One of the approaches is to utilize the ‘standardized residual’ or ‘studentized resitual’. In linear regression, an outlier is an observation with large residual. In other words, it is an observation whose dependent-variable value is unusual given its values on the predictor variables.

The studentized residual is the quotient resulting from division of a residual by an estimate of its standard deviation. Just like the standard deviation, the studentized residual is very useful in detecting the outliers. For values outside the 3, 4, or 5 times standard deviation, we may have reasonable doubt that the values are outliers. In regression setting, observed values outside 3, 4, or 5 times the studentized residual are the targets for outliers.

In SAS, two regression procedures can be easily utilized to compute the studendized residual for detecting outliers. PROC REG and PROC GLM. The studentized residual is labelled as RSTUDENT in Output statement. Other regression procedure (such as PROC MIXED) also compute studentized residual as part of Influence test. 

               output out=newdata rstudent=xxx;
Further readings:

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Outliers in clinical trial, Dixon's Q test for a single outlier


In clinical trials, we deal with the outlier issue differently from other fields. During the clinical trial, for the suspected ‘outliers’, every effort should be taken to query the investigator sites, to repeat measures, or to re-test the samples in order to get the correct information. Typically those suspected ‘outliers’ can be clarified during the data cleaning process. It is just not very common to throw away the data (even it is suspected to be ‘outlier’) in clinical trials. In one of pharmacokinetics studies, I did have to deal with the suspected outliers (we used the term ‘exceptional value’ instead of ‘outliers’). After the sample re-test, we still had one value very high. Instead of throwing away this exceptional value, we had to perform the analysis with and without this exceptional value. 

In one of the presentations by a FDA officer, the term ‘outliers’ vs anomalous are used.
  • Outlier subjects may be “real” results and are therefore very valuable in making a correct BE conclusion
  • Anomalous results are data that are not correct due to some flaw in study conduct or analysis
In many situations, it is very difficult to know for sure whether or not an exceptional value is a outlier or an anomalous result.

In ICH E9 "Statistical Principles for Clinical Trials", the handling of outliers was discussed in the section of "missing values and outliers".      
5.3 Missing Values and Outliers

Missing values represent a potential source of bias in a clinical trial. Hence, every effort should be undertaken to fulfil all the requirements of the protocol concerning the collection and management of data. In reality, however, there will almost always be some missing data. A trial may be regarded as valid, nonetheless, provided the methods of dealing with missing values are sensible, and particularly if those methods are pre-defined in the protocol. Definition of methods may be refined by updating this aspect in the statistical analysis plan during the blind review. Unfortunately, no universally applicable methods of handling missing values can be recommended. An investigation should be made concerning the sensitivity of the results of analysis to the method of handling missing values, especially if the number of missing values is substantial.

A similar approach should be adopted to exploring the influence of outliers, the statistical definition of which is, to some extent, arbitrary. Clear identification of a particular value as an outlier is most convincing when justified medically as well as statistically, and the medical context will then often define the appropriate action. Any outlier procedure set out in the protocol or the statistical analysis plan should be such as not to favour any treatment group a priori. Once again, this aspect of the analysis can be usefully updated during blind review. If no procedure for dealing with outliers was foreseen in the trial protocol, one analysis with the actual values and at least one other analysis eliminating or reducing the outlier effect should be performed and differences between their results discussed.


I was recently asked for help to test an outlier for the data from a lab experiment (not a clinical trial).
The titer for the same sample was measured for 20 times.  The titer is 25 for 7 times, 125 for 12 times. However, for one time, the title is 625.  Is there any way to test (statistically) whether the titer of 625 is an outlier?
 Titer
25
125
625
N
7
12
1

There is a simple test for outlier called Dixon's Q-test. Dixon’s Q-test calculates the Q value that is the ratio of the Gap (the difference between the extreme value and the immediately adjacent value) and the Range (the difference between the extreme value and the maximal or minimal value)

In the case above, the titer value needs to be log-transferred first, therefore, with Log10 data transfer, data will be listed as the following (in order):

1.39794 1.39794 1.39794 1.39794 1.39794 1.39794 1.39794 2.09691 2.09691 2.09691
2.09691 2.09691 2.09691 2.09691 2.09691 2.09691 2.09691 2.09691 2.09691 2.79588

The gap = 2.79588 - 2.09691 = 0.69897
The range = 2.79588 - 1.39794 = 1.39794
The Q value = 0.69897 / 1.39794 = 0.5

The Q value will then be compared with the critical value. The critical value can be found at difference web sources or from the original paper. The critical value for N=(7+12+1) = 20 is 0.342.
Since Q value is larger than 0.342, we can reject 2.79588 and conclude that the original value 625 (log-transferred value of 2.79588) is a outlier.

If we use a Log5 data transfer, the calculation will be easier and conclusion is the same. 

This approach can only be used for detecting a single outlier. If there are more than one values in 625 titer group, Dixon's Q test will not be an appropriate approach.

Typically, identifying of the outliers is against a continuous variable (ie, the data is continuous). The data above contains many ties (due to the design). Therefore, the results from the Dixon’s Q-test needs to be interpreted in caution. The determination of the outliers should always be based on the understanding of the experimental data.

For further reading about the outlier issues: