Trial Types
There are several potential trials that can be run.
Case Series
A case series publishes data about a series of patients with the same initial event; this may be diagnosis of a cancer or intervention with a treatment.
- Example: A doctor publishes a case series of 30 patients who were treated with radiotherapy for salivary gland cancer. He documents the treatment received, the local control, and overall survival.
Case series are good at providing a snapshot of treatment outcomes, particularly for rare tumours where conduction a randomised trial would take significant time and require multiple centres to be involved. They are limited by numerous biases, particularly selection bias and channelling bias.
