Validate trial specification — validate

Used internally. Validates the inputs common to all trial specifications, as specified in setup_trial(), setup_trial_binom() and setup_trial_norm().

Usage

validate_trial(
  arms,
  true_ys,
  start_probs = NULL,
  fixed_probs = NULL,
  min_probs = rep(NA, length(arms)),
  max_probs = rep(NA, length(arms)),
  rescale_probs = NULL,
  data_looks = NULL,
  max_n = NULL,
  look_after_every = NULL,
  randomised_at_looks = NULL,
  control = NULL,
  control_prob_fixed = NULL,
  inferiority = 0.01,
  superiority = 0.99,
  equivalence_prob = NULL,
  equivalence_diff = NULL,
  equivalence_only_first = NULL,
  futility_prob = NULL,
  futility_diff = NULL,
  futility_only_first = NULL,
  highest_is_best = FALSE,
  soften_power = 1,
  cri_width = 0.95,
  n_draws = 5000,
  robust = FALSE,
  description = NULL,
  add_info = NULL,
  fun_y_gen,
  fun_draws,
  fun_raw_est
)

Arguments

arms: character vector with unique names for the trial arms.
true_ys: numeric vector specifying true outcomes (e.g., event probabilities, mean values, etc.) for all trial arms.
start_probs: numeric vector, allocation probabilities for each arm at the beginning of the trial. The default (NULL) automatically generates equal randomisation probabilities for each arm.
fixed_probs: numeric vector, fixed allocation probabilities for each arm. Must be either a numeric vector with NA for arms without fixed probabilities and values between 0 and 1 for the other arms or NULL (default), if adaptive randomisation is used for all arms or if one of the special settings ("sqrt-based", "sqrt-based start", "sqrt-based fixed", or "match") is specified for control_prob_fixed (described below).
min_probs: numeric vector, lower threshold for adaptive allocation probabilities; lower probabilities will be rounded up to these values. Must be NA (default for all arms) if no lower threshold is wanted and for arms using fixed allocation probabilities.
max_probs: numeric vector, upper threshold for adaptive allocation probabilities; higher probabilities will be rounded down to these values. Must be NA (default for all arms) if no threshold is wanted and for arms using fixed allocation probabilities.
rescale_probs: NULL (default) or one of either "fixed", "limits", or "both". Rescales fixed_probs (if "fixed" or "both") and min_probs/max_probs (if "limits" or "both") after arm dropping in trial specifications with >2 arms using a rescale_factor defined as initial number of arms/number of active arms. "fixed_probs and min_probs are rescaled as initial value * rescale factor, except for fixed_probs controlled by the control_prob_fixed argument, which are never rescaled. max_probs are rescaled as 1 - ( (1 - initial value) * rescale_factor).
Must be NULL if there are only 2 arms or if control_prob_fixed is "sqrt-based fixed". If not NULL, one or more valid non-NA values must be specified for either min_probs/max_probs or fixed_probs (not counting a fixed value for the original control if control_prob_fixed is "sqrt-based"/"sqrt-based start"/"sqrt-based fixed").
Note: using this argument and specific combinations of values in the other arguments may lead to invalid combined (total) allocation probabilities after arm dropping, in which case all probabilities will ultimately be rescaled to sum to 1. It is the responsibility of the user to ensure that rescaling fixed allocation probabilities and minimum/maximum allocation probability limits will not lead to invalid or unexpected allocation probabilities after arm dropping.
Finally, any initial values that are overwritten by the control_prob_fixed argument after arm dropping will not be rescaled.
data_looks: vector of increasing integers, specifies when to conduct adaptive analyses (= the total number of patients with available outcome data at each adaptive analysis). The last number in the vector represents the final adaptive analysis, i.e., the final analysis where superiority, inferiority, practical equivalence, or futility can be claimed. Instead of specifying data_looks, the max_n and look_after_every arguments can be used in combination (in which case data_looks must be NULL, the default value).
max_n: single integer, number of patients with available outcome data at the last possible adaptive analysis (defaults to NULL). Must only be specified if data_looks is NULL. Requires specification of the look_after_every argument.
look_after_every: single integer, specified together with max_n. Adaptive analyses will be conducted after every look_after_every patients have available outcome data, and at the total sample size as specified by max_n (max_n does not need to be a multiple of look_after_every). If specified, data_looks must be NULL (default).
randomised_at_looks: vector of increasing integers or NULL, specifying the number of patients randomised at the time of each adaptive analysis, with new patients randomised using the current allocation probabilities at said analysis. If NULL (the default), the number of patients randomised at each analysis will match the number of patients with available outcome data at said analysis, as specified by data_looks or max_n and look_after_every, i.e., outcome data will be available immediately after randomisation for all patients.
If not NULL, the vector must be of the same length as the number of adaptive analyses specified by data_looks or max_n and look_after_every, and all values must be larger than or equal to the number of patients with available outcome data at each analysis.
control: single character string, name of one of the arms or NULL (default). If specified, this arm will serve as a common control arm, to which all other arms will be compared and the inferiority/superiority/equivalence thresholds (see below) will be for those comparisons. See setup_trial() Details for information on behaviour with respect to these comparisons.
control_prob_fixed: if a common control arm is specified, this can be set NULL (the default), in which case the control arm allocation probability will not be fixed if control arms change (the allocation probability for the first control arm may still be fixed using fixed_probs, but will not be 'reused' for the new control arm).
If not NULL, a vector of probabilities of either length 1 or number of arms - 1 can be provided, or one of the special arguments "sqrt-based", "sqrt-based start", "sqrt-based fixed" or "match".
See setup_trial() Details for details on how this affects trial behaviour.
inferiority: single numeric value or vector of numeric values of the same length as the maximum number of possible adaptive analyses, specifying the probability threshold(s) for inferiority (default is 0.01). All values must be >= 0 and <= 1, and if multiple values are supplied, no values may be lower than the preceding value. If a common controlis not used, all values must be < 1 / number of arms. An arm will be considered inferior and dropped if the probability that it is best (when comparing all arms) or better than the control arm (when a common control is used) drops below the inferiority threshold at an adaptive analysis.
superiority: single numeric value or vector of numeric values of the same length as the maximum number of possible adaptive analyses, specifying the probability threshold(s) for superiority (default is 0.99). All values must be >= 0 and <= 1, and if multiple values are supplied, no values may be higher than the preceding value. If the probability that an arm is best (when comparing all arms) or better than the control arm (when a common control is used) exceeds the superiority threshold at an adaptive analysis, said arm will be declared the winner and the trial will be stopped (if no common control is used or if the last comparator is dropped in a design with a common control) or become the new control and the trial will continue (if a common control is specified).
equivalence_prob: single numeric value, vector of numeric values of the same length as the maximum number of possible adaptive analyses or NULL (default, corresponding to no equivalence assessment), specifying the probability threshold(s) for equivalence. If not NULL, all values must be > 0 and <= 1, and if multiple values are supplied, no value may be higher than the preceding value. If not NULL, arms will be dropped for equivalence if the probability of either (a) equivalence compared to a common control or (b) equivalence between all arms remaining (designs without a common control) exceeds the equivalence threshold at an adaptive analysis. Requires specification of equivalence_diff and equivalence_only_first.
equivalence_diff: single numeric value (> 0) or NULL (default, corresponding to no equivalence assessment). If a numeric value is specified, estimated absolute differences smaller than this threshold will be considered equivalent. For designs with a common control arm, the differences between each non-control arm and the control arm is used, and for trials without a common control arm, the difference between the highest and lowest estimated outcome rates are used and the trial is only stopped for equivalence if all remaining arms are equivalent.
equivalence_only_first: single logical in trial specifications where equivalence_prob and equivalence_diff are specified and a common control arm is included, otherwise NULL (default). If a common control arm is used, this specifies whether equivalence will only be assessed for the first control (if TRUE) or also for subsequent control arms (if FALSE) if one arm is superior to the first control and becomes the new control.
futility_prob: single numeric value, vector of numeric values of the same length as the maximum number of possible adaptive analyses or NULL (default, corresponding to no futility assessment), specifying the probability threshold(s) for futility. All values must be > 0 and <= 1, and if multiple values are supplied, no value may be higher than the preceding value. If not NULL, arms will be dropped for futility if the probability for futility compared to the common control exceeds the futility threshold at an adaptive analysis. Requires a common control arm (otherwise this argument must be NULL), specification of futility_diff, and futility_only_first.
futility_diff: single numeric value (> 0) or NULL (default, corresponding to no futility assessment). If a numeric value is specified, estimated differences below this threshold in the beneficial direction (as specified in highest_is_best) will be considered futile when assessing futility in designs with a common control arm. If only 1 arm remains after dropping arms for futility, the trial will be stopped without declaring the last arm superior.
futility_only_first: single logical in trial specifications designs where futility_prob and futility_diff are specified, otherwise NULL (default and required in designs without a common control arm). Specifies whether futility will only be assessed against the first control (if TRUE) or also for subsequent control arms (if FALSE) if one arm is superior to the first control and becomes the new control.
highest_is_best: single logical, specifies whether larger estimates of the outcome are favourable or not; defaults to FALSE, corresponding to, e.g., an undesirable binary outcomes (e.g., mortality) or a continuous outcome where lower numbers are preferred (e.g., hospital length of stay).
soften_power: either a single numeric value or a numeric vector of exactly the same length as the maximum number of looks/adaptive analyses. Values must be between 0 and 1 (default); if < 1, then re-allocated non-fixed allocation probabilities are all raised to this power (followed by rescaling to sum to 1) to make adaptive allocation probabilities less extreme, in turn used to redistribute remaining probability while respecting limits when defined by min_probs and/or max_probs. If 1, then no softening is applied.
cri_width: single numeric >= 0 and < 1, the width of the percentile-based credible intervals used when summarising individual trial results. Defaults to 0.95, corresponding to 95% credible intervals.
n_draws: single integer, the number of draws from the posterior distributions for each arm used when running the trial. Defaults to 5000; can be reduced for a speed gain (at the potential loss of stability of results if too low) or increased for increased precision (increasing simulation time). Values < 100 are not allowed and values < 1000 are not recommended and warned against.
robust: single logical, if TRUE (default) the medians and median absolute deviations (scaled to be comparable to the standard deviation for normal distributions; MAD_SDs, see stats::mad()) are used to summarise the posterior distributions; if FALSE, the means and standard deviations (SDs) are used instead (slightly faster, but may be less appropriate for posteriors skewed on the natural scale).
description: optional single character string describing the trial design, will only be used in print functions if not NULL (the default).
add_info: optional single string containing additional information regarding the trial design or specifications, will only be used in print functions if not NULL (the default).
fun_y_gen: function, generates outcomes. See setup_trial() Details for information on how to specify this function.
Note: this function is called once during setup to validate its output (with the global random seed restored afterwards).
fun_draws: function, generates posterior draws. See setup_trial() Details for information on how to specify this function.
Note: this function is called up to three times during setup to validate its output (with the global random seed restored afterwards).
fun_raw_est: function that takes a numeric vector and returns a single numeric value, used to calculate a raw summary estimate of the outcomes in each arm. Defaults to mean(), which is always used in the setup_trial_binom() and setup_trial_norm() functions.
Note: the function is called one time per arm during setup to validate the output structure.

Value

An object of class trial_spec containing the validated trial specification.