Surrogate endpoint
A quicker, easier measurement used as a stand-in for what really matters. Tumour shrinkage or delayed growth stands in for living longer, on the assumption, not always true, that one leads to the other.
Progression-free survival, response rate, pathologic complete response, minimal residual disease and ctDNA clearance are the main surrogates in oncology; they are available months or years before overall survival and need fewer patients, so they drive most accelerated approvals and many full ones. A surrogate is valid for a given drug class and disease only if trials show that improving it reliably improves survival, and this correlation is strong in some settings (PFS in ovarian cancer maintenance) and weak in others (response rate in many solid tumours). When a surrogate-based approval is not confirmed by later survival data, the approval can be withdrawn, as has happened repeatedly since 2021.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- TermDuration of response
Shares Partial response, Objective response rate (ORR), Accelerated approval, Progression-free survival (PFS).
- IdeaAn independent programme that validates surrogate endpoints, setting by setting
Shares Pathologic complete response (pCR), Objective response rate (ORR), Accelerated approval, Overall survival (OS).
- TermSurrogate endpoint
Shares Pathologic complete response (pCR), Accelerated approval, Progression-free survival (PFS), Minimal / molecular residual disease (MRD).
- IdeaProvisional prices for surrogate-endpoint approvals, reset when survival data arrive
Shares Accelerated approval, Overall survival (OS), Progression-free survival (PFS).
- TermRemission
Shares Partial response, Overall survival (OS), Minimal / molecular residual disease (MRD).
- TermDuration of response (DoR) and disease control rate (DCR)
Shares Objective response rate (ORR), Accelerated approval, Progression-free survival (PFS).
- TermComplete response
Shares Partial response, Pathologic complete response (pCR), Objective response rate (ORR).
- TermReading a hazard ratio
Shares Endpoint, Overall survival (OS), Progression-free survival (PFS).