Trial update is an article type debuting in this issue of JCO that provides a rigorous short form for the dissemination of updated results from previously reported trials. By requiring authors to focus on the new data and their clinical implications, rather than repeating the original trial design, patient population, and primary end points, we can save space and better serve our readers by allowing authors to highlight key additional results that inform care. This approach also allows authors to publish early and make their statistical analysis plans (SAPs) available for wider use before the manuscript is in review.
In this context, priority will be given to secondary or tertiary end points and prespecified subset analyses, with rare exceptions for unplanned ancillary analyses that provide insight into the underlying disease biology, inform clinical care, or support additional ongoing studies. Similarly, longer-term or chronic toxicity data may be of value even in curable malignancies with long natural histories, but such information is often unavailable at the time of initial reporting.
Where the aspirin arm is being compared to standard primary therapy in a parallel-arm design, it will be appropriate to co-enrol participants who are already enrolled in a trial of the standard therapy where possible, in order to assess whether aspirin improves outcomes over standard treatment. This will allow researchers to measure the effect of aspirin independently from a change in the current standard of care and should be considered when planning recruitment for the trial.