A practical impediment in adaptive clinical trials is that outcomes must be observed soon enough to apply decision rules to choose treatments for new patients. For example, if outcomes take up to six weeks to evaluate and the accrual rate is one patient per week, on average three new patients...

The intubation-surfactant-extubation (INSURE) procedure is used worldwide to treat preterm newborn infants suffering from respiratory distress syndrome, which is caused by an insufficient amount of the chemical surfactant in the lungs. With INSURE, the infant is intubated, surfactant is...