We have developed a tool allowing researchers to analyse HIV and TB Clinical Trial Protocols and identify risk factors using Natural Language Processing. The tool allows a user to upload a clinical trial protocol in PDF format, and the tool will generate a risk assessment of the trial. You can find example protocols by searching on ClinicalTrials.gov. Details of this proof of concept The POC stage is limited to 2 pathologies: HIV and Tuberculosis (TB).
In order to develop the Clinical Trial Risk Tool, we had to conduct a quality control exercise on the components. Each parameter which is fed into the complexity model is trained and evaluated independently. For an overview of how the tool works, please read this blog post. Datasets I used two datasets to train and evaluate the tool: Manual dataset – this was a set of between 100 and 300 protocols which I read through individually and annotated key parameters such as the sample size.
I am please to announce the Clinical Trial Risk Tool, which is now open to the public to use. The tool is available at https://clinical.fastdatascience.com. Screenshot of the tool The tool consists of a web interface where a user can upload a protocol in PDF or Word format, and ultimately a number of features were extracted, such as number of subjects, statistical analysis plan, effect size, number of countries, etc.
A technical paper on the Clinical Trial Risk Tool has been published in Gates Open Research! The Clinical Trial Risk Tool is a browser-based tool which uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyse clinical trial protocols. We are pleased to announce the publication of a technical paper on the tool. Wood TA and McNair D. Clinical Trial Risk Tool: software application using natural language processing to identify the risk of trial uninformativeness [version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations].
