Censoring (clinical trials)
Encyclopedia
The term censoring is used in clinical trial
s to refer to mathematically removing a patient
from the survival curve
at the end of their follow-up time. Censoring a patient will reduce the sample size
for analyzing after the time of the censorship. Reducing the sample size always reduces reliability, so the more patients are censored and the earlier they are censored the more unreliable the results are.
Many clinical trials are designed with a minimum follow-up time. This means that the results aren't reported until that amount of the time after the last patient signed up for the trial. Often reports of the preliminary results don't include any minimum follow-up time and include the patients with very short follow-up time which definitely affects the reliability of the result.
Clinical trial
Clinical trials are a set of procedures in medical research and drug development that are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions...
s to refer to mathematically removing a patient
Patient
A patient is any recipient of healthcare services. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, advanced practice registered nurse, veterinarian, or other health care provider....
from the survival curve
Survival analysis
Survival analysis is a branch of statistics which deals with death in biological organisms and failure in mechanical systems. This topic is called reliability theory or reliability analysis in engineering, and duration analysis or duration modeling in economics or sociology...
at the end of their follow-up time. Censoring a patient will reduce the sample size
Sample size
Sample size determination is the act of choosing the number of observations to include in a statistical sample. The sample size is an important feature of any empirical study in which the goal is to make inferences about a population from a sample...
for analyzing after the time of the censorship. Reducing the sample size always reduces reliability, so the more patients are censored and the earlier they are censored the more unreliable the results are.
Many clinical trials are designed with a minimum follow-up time. This means that the results aren't reported until that amount of the time after the last patient signed up for the trial. Often reports of the preliminary results don't include any minimum follow-up time and include the patients with very short follow-up time which definitely affects the reliability of the result.