Many clinical trials include several treatment groups, with patients treated with either different drugs or same drug but different doses. It is uncommon to have a treatment which is superior to other treatments in both efficacy and safety. Therefore, to select a better treatment among them can be challenging, especially if users' utility preference is also considered. Multi-criteria decision analysis had been used in some cases with different degree of success.
In this research, we proposed another approach, which takes into consideration of not only efficacy and safety outcomes of the trial but also patients' utility preference of efficacy and safety. This approach offers a more flexible treatment selection instead of the sole consideration of study data. Data from a recent clinical trial is used to illustrate the proposed approach.
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