Including comparative observational evidence in trial-level surrogate end point evaluation: assessing relapse-free survival as a surrogate end point for overall survival in patients with acute myeloid leukemia posttransplant

<h4>Objectives</h4>Overall survival (OS) is the gold standard outcome for the assessment of treatment benefits in oncology trials. However, OS requires lengthy patient follow-up and can be confounded by competing risks. This study aims to assess the validity of relapse-free survival (RFS) as a trial-level surrogate end point for OS in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and develop novel methods to combine data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and comparative observational evidence (COE) studies.<h4>Study design and setting</h4>A systematic review was conducted to identify RCTs and COE studies reporting treatment effects on both RFS and OS in adult patients with AML receiving posthematopoietic stem-cell transplant (HSCT) maintenance therapy. Bayesian meta-analytic models were used to evaluate the RFS-OS surrogate relationship, and statistical methods were developed to enable information sharing, in both adaptive and user-specified manners, between RCTs and COE studies.<h4>Results</h4>Six RCTs and 14 COE studies were identified. Analysis of RCT data resulted in a weaker surrogate relationship, with parameters obtained with considerable uncertainty. Borrowing strength from COE studies, in both an adaptive and a user-controlled fashion, resulted in a stronger RFS-OS surrogate relationship with more precise parameters, and adaptive information-sharing models did not suggest any prior-data conflict between the RCTs and COE studies.<h4>Conclusion</h4>We present evidence for a potential RFS-OS surrogate relationship in patients with AML post-HSCT. Our novel methodology for borrowing information from COE studies reduced uncertainty in this surrogate relationship, alleviating the issue of a limited RCT evidence base.<p></p>