The ACTA Statistics in Trials Interest Group (STInG) recently convened in their annual members meeting to continue in their commitment to advancing statistical methodologies, fostering collaboration among trial statisticians, and fortifying the quality of clinical trials within Australia.

The meeting began with a review of the group’s objectives, which continue to include strengthening links among trial statisticians, establishing robust support networks, and advocating for professional statistical acumen in clinical research.

The slightly revised STInG objectives are:

• To improve the quality of clinical trials within Australia by strengthening links among trial statisticians.
• To maintain a structured support network for trial statisticians across Australia, within which different centres provide specialist support for particular trial designs or clinical areas.
• To work with ACTA to increase recognition and advocate within the research community (including ethics committees and with the NHMRC) for the importance of professional statistical support in the conduct of trials.
• To promote collaborative research among trial statisticians in clinical trial design and analysis.
• To promote professional standards of statistics in trials and where possible harmonise attitudes to the practice of statistics in clinical trials settings within Australia.
• To facilitate a strategy for training and mentoring future generations of trial statisticians within Australia.

Previous activities and achievements

A look at the activities from the previous year revealed notable achievements, including

• the inaugural “STInG chat” where 2 eminent statisticians were quizzed on careers in biostatistics
• hosting webinars on reproducibility, N-of-1 studies and seamless phase 2/3 designs in oncology
• and the development of guidance documents around career pathways and data safety monitoring boards.

There was also the ACTA STInG Statistics in Trials award, the annual STInG newsletter, and the second round of the DSMB mentoring scheme. Members of STInG have also worked in collaboration with the ACTA Innovative Trial Design Working group to facilitate a series of adaptive trials clinics and the development of guidance documents around these novel designs, highlighting the group's commitment to advancing innovation and disseminating knowledge.

Future initiatives

The main part of the meeting was to brainstorm future initiatives and strategic direction for STInG for 2024. The core activities of the group, including the bi-annual newsletter, the STInG discussion forum, and the DSMB mentorship scheme, will be continued into 2024 and beyond. It was also noted that a review and update of the ACTA STInG website, utilising ACTA’s administrative support resources, is currently underway. Other potential initiatives raised by members of the group were:

1. To provide more training on GitHub – for example, tips & tricks to make the process quicker/more reproducible.
2. To increase interaction with Registry statisticians. Previously we had discussed Arul Ernest to join the STInG steering committee. This was thought to be a good idea as well as to encourage registry statisticians to join to group e.g. people who ran the registry workshop (Monash) & through Leone.
3. To keep including estimands in our remit.
4. To advocacy for quality statistics within hospitals by actively reaching out to hospitals conducting research.
5. To host webinars on using electronic health records. For example, highlighting some of the issues and how to deal with them, defining what kind of outcomes might you have and what kind of biases can come into it, and data linkage.
6. To host webinars on data sharing e.g. Julie Simpson talking about HeSANDA.
7. To consider the use of AI in trials, for example data driven subgroup analysis, prediction modelling and the use of digital twins.
8. To develop a  collaboration with the UK’s “statistics operational group”, a group in the UK who have similar initiatives to STInG.

In line with the STInG commitment to continual learning and adaptation, the 2023 annual meeting served as a platform for discussion and collaboration. Members are encouraged to continue to contribute to the group’s goal of improving statistical quality of clinical trials in Australia.