Abstract
Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) in oncology are the backbone of advancing the clinical practice of oncology. Their significance is particularly pronounced in high-impact and influential journals such as the NEJM, The Lancet, The Lancet Oncol, JAMA, JAMA Oncol, and JCO. However, previous works have highlighted that RCTs often fail to provide complete reporting of survival endpoints, which can jeopardize the oncologist's interpretation of the study findings. This is a narrative review in which we provide some basic concepts of survival statistics and apply these in the analysis of six RCTs published in these six journals. These articles were selected solely by scanning the latest issues (printed) on the journals' web pages. The first RCT on a solid tumor to appear in the corresponding journals was selected. No other criteria were applied. We found that these six trials failed to provide crucial data, such as the number of survival events, patient censoring, and the presentation of both absolute and relative effect sizes on survival, to different extents. This report study focuses solely on a small subset of RCTs from high-impact journals, which may not represent the reporting practices of oncology RCTs published in other journals or at different times. The most well-informed party should be the patients, who ultimately benefit from improved RCT reporting. We hope this work will inspire oncologists to sharpen their skills in analyzing RCTs and encourage statistician experts to contribute their valuable insights and knowledge on this issue.
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