Design and Data Analytics PIA : Power Calculations for Alzheimer's Clinical Trials.

Recorded: April 27, 2022

Longitudinal studies are ubiquitous in medical and clinical research. Sample size computations are critical to ensure that these studies are sufficiently powered to provide reliable and valid inferences. There are several methodologies for calculating sample sizes for longitudinal studies that depend on many considerations including the study design features, outcome type, and distribution, and proposed analytical methods. We discuss commonly used sample size formulas for continuous longitudinal outcomes. We perform a demo with an R Shiny app that we developed to assist researchers in obtaining required sample sizes for longitudinal studies by allowing users to enter required pilot estimates. For Alzheimer’s studies, the app can estimate required pilot parameters using data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). The app is useful as it can easily be used to assess the operating characteristics of study designs for Alzheimer’s clinical trials and other research studies with longitudinal continuous outcomes.

Moderator: Michael Donohue

Panelist: Samuel Iddi