Stephens Richard, Stewart David
Retired, previously MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London, UK.
BMC Cancer. 2014 Apr 14;14:260. doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-14-260.
As the enthusiasm for individualized treatment and targeted therapies continues to gain momentum, it seems timely to re-assess whether our current research tools are fit for purpose. Randomized Clinical Trials compare groups of patients, the Hazard Ratio is a 'group summary statistic', and modeling shows that the same Hazard Ratio score could result from a number of scenarios. Thus the current tools do not provide definitive information as to how to treat an individual patient. We therefore need to concentrate on the use of predictive factor analyses to identify the characteristics of subgroups of patients who respond to specific treatments.
随着个性化治疗和靶向治疗的热情持续高涨，重新评估我们当前的研究工具是否适用似乎恰逢其时。随机临床试验比较患者组，风险比是一个“组汇总统计量”，并且模型表明相同的风险比分数可能由多种情况导致。因此，当前的工具并未提供关于如何治疗个体患者的确切信息。我们因此需要专注于使用预测因素分析来识别对特定治疗有反应的患者亚组的特征。
