A research team develops a new monoclonal antibody checkpoint inhibitor for advanced melanoma that has shown promise in animal studies as well as high efficacy and low toxicity in early phase human clinical trials. The research team would now like to compare this drug to existing standard of care immunotherapy for advanced melanoma. The research team decides to conduct a non-randomized study where the novel drug will be offered to patients who are deemed to be at risk for toxicity with the current standard of care immunotherapy, while patients without such risk factors will receive the standard treatment. Which of the following best describes the level of evidence that this study can offer?
ALevel 1
BLevel 3
CLevel 5
DLevel 4
ELevel 2
A clinical trial investigating a new biomedical device used to correct congenital talipes equinovarus (club foot) in infants has recently been published. The study was a preliminary investigation of a new device and as such the sample size is only 20 participants. The results indicate that the new biomedical device is less efficacious than the current standard of care of serial casting (p < 0.001), but the authors mention in the conclusion that it may be due to a single outlier--a patient whose foot remained uncorrected by the conclusion of the study. Which of the following descriptive statistics is the least sensitive to outliers?
AStandard deviation
BMedian
CMean
DVariance
EMode
The success of a new treatment designed to deter people from smoking was evaluated by a team of researchers. However, the heaviest and most committed smokers in the study group were less interested in quitting and subsequently dropped out of the study. Nonetheless, the researchers continued with their research (disregarding those who dropped out), which resulted in a false conclusion that the treatment was more successful than the results would have shown under ideal study conditions. The smokers who were confirmed as quitters were actually the ones who were more interested in giving up smoking, which is why they remained in the study. Which of the following is the bias that invalidates the researchers’ conclusion in this example?
AAttrition bias
BDetection bias
CAscertainment bias
DExclusion bias
ENon-response bias
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