Evaluation of sample size and power for analyses of survival with allowance for nonuniform patient entry, losses to follow-up, noncompliance, and stratification

Abstract

When designing a clinical trial to test the equality of survival distributions for two treatment groups, the usual assumptions are exponential survival, uniform patient entry, full compliance, and censoring only administratively at the end of the trial. Various authors have presented methods for estimation of sample size or power under these assumptions, some of which allow for an R-year accrual period with T total years of study, T greater than R. The method of Lachin (1981, Controlled Clinical Trials 2, 93-113) is extended to allow for cases where patients enter the trial in a nonuniform manner over time, patients may exit from the trial due to loss to follow-up (other than administrative), other patients may continue follow-up although failing to comply with the treatment regimen, and a stratified analysis may be planned according to one or more prognostic covariates.