Group sequential monitoring based on the weighted log‐rank test statistic with the Fleming–Harrington class of weights in cancer vaccine studies

In recent years, immunological science has evolved, and cancer vaccines are now approved and available for treating existing cancers. Because cancer vaccines require time to elicit an immune response, a delayed treatment effect is expected and is actually observed in drug approval studies. Accordingly, we propose the evaluation of survival endpoints by weighted log-rank tests with the Fleming-Harrington class of weights. We consider group sequential monitoring, which allows early efficacy stopping, and determine a semiparametric information fraction for the Fleming-Harrington family of weights, which is necessary for the error spending function. Moreover, we give a flexible survival model in cancer vaccine studies that considers not only the delayed treatment effect but also the long-term survivors. In a Monte Carlo simulation study, we illustrate that when the primary analysis is a weighted log-rank test emphasizing the late differences, the proposed information fraction can be a useful alternative to the surrogate information fraction, which is proportional to the number of events. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.