The challenges of stopping trials for benefit: Lessons learnt from the immediate Kangaroo Mother Care (iKMC) trial – Part 2

Topics:STInG Statistics DSMB

The main objective of this talk was to discuss the challenges of stopping trials early for benefit. The immediate Kangaroo Mother Care (iKMC) trial, recently published in NEJM, was used as an example to address the following issues:

a) How robust was the evidence from trials stopped early for benefit?
b) When was it appropriate to stop trials early for benefit?
c) Knowing that stopping early was associated with biases, how could we optimise our approach to monitoring trials to avoid this?
d) How did we balance the ethics of stopping early versus the pursuit of scientific truth in getting it right?
e) What were the scientific implications of stopping early?
f) What were the ethical implications of not stopping early given the importance of adhering to the trial protocol?

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