Bayesian analysis of evidence from studies of warfarin v aspirin for symptomatic intracranial stenosis

Bayesian analyses of symptomatic intracranial stenosis studies were conducted to compare the benefits of long-term therapy with warfarin to aspirin. The synthesis of evidence of effect from previous nonrandomized studies in monitoring a randomized clinical trial was of particular interest. Sequential Bayesian learning analysis was conducted and Bayesian hierarchical random effects models were used to incorporate variability between studies. The posterior point estimates for the risk rate ratio (RRR) were similar between analyses, although the interval estimates resulting from the hierarchical analyses are larger than the corresponding Bayesian learning analyses. This demonstrated the difference between these methods in accounting for between-study variability. This study suggests that Bayesian synthesis can be a useful supplement to futility analysis in the process of monitoring randomized clinical trials.