StATS: Likelihood software for clinical trials (June 29, 2006)

A member of our local IRB forwarded a press release announcing new software that would revolutionize the conduct of clinical trials. The company is called Analytical Edge and they offer a software program called Pure Likelihood. There is only a limited amount of information at the website:

But the web page of one of the founders of the company, Jeffrey Blume, includes some talks and papers about the topic. The basic thrust is that the p-value is not a good tool for making decisions about whether a drug is safe and/or efficacious, and it should be replaced with the likelihood ratio. The best paper

is well worth reading. The likelihood ratio is much more nimble at capturing information appropriate for interim analyses, for example.

Dr. Blume is not the first to criticize the p-value, and some interesting links if you want to explore this further are listed below.

This page was written by Steve Simon while working at Children's Mercy Hospital. Although I do not hold the copyright for this material, I am reproducing it here as a service, as it is no longer available on the Children's Mercy Hospital website. Need more information? I have a page with general help resources. You can also browse for pages similar to this one at Category: Statistical computing.