Cost-benefit of outcome adjudication in nine randomised stroke trials

Peter J Godolphin, Philip M Bath, Ale Algra, Eivind Berge, John Chalmers, Misha Eliasziw, Graeme J Hankey, Naohisa Hosomi, Annamarei Ranta, Christian Weimar, Lisa J Woodhouse, Alan A Montgomery

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Central adjudication of outcomes is common for randomised trials and should control for differential misclassification. However, few studies have estimated the cost of the adjudication process.

METHODS: We estimated the cost of adjudicating the primary outcome in nine randomised stroke trials (25,436 participants). The costs included adjudicators' time, direct payments to adjudicators, and co-ordinating centre costs (e.g. uploading cranial scans and general set-up costs). The number of events corrected after adjudication was our measure of benefit. We calculated cost per corrected event for each trial and in total.

RESULTS: The primary outcome in all nine trials was either stroke or a composite that included stroke. In total, the adjudication process associated with this primary outcome cost in excess of £100,000 for a third of the trials (3/9). Mean cost per event corrected by adjudication was £2295.10 (SD: £1482.42).

CONCLUSIONS: Central adjudication is a time-consuming and potentially costly process. These costs need to be considered when designing a trial and should be evaluated alongside the potential benefits adjudication brings to determine whether they outweigh this expense.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)576-580
Number of pages5
JournalClinical Trials
Volume17
Issue number5
Early online date10 Jul 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2020

Keywords

  • Adjudication
  • clinical trial
  • stroke

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