Outcome assessment for clinical trials: How many adjudicators do we need?

Considerable effort is often expended to adjudicate outcomes in clinical trials, but little has been written on the administration of the adjudication process and its possible impact on study results. As a case study, we describe the function and performance of an adjudication committee in a large randomized trial of two diagnostic approaches to potentially operable lung cancer. Up to five independent adjudicators independently determined two …