6th CEN Conference

Session

TC1: 50th anniversary of the closed testing procedure

19 May 2026, 10:45

Room 1 B

Conveners

TC1: 50th anniversary of the closed testing procedure

• Bjorn Bornkamp (Novartis)

58. The invention of the closed testing procedure and early developments

Markus Neuhäuser (Koblenz University of Applied Sciences)

19/05/2026, 10:45

oral presentation

This talk will present the closed testing procedure as it was first introduced by Marcus et al. (1976). We discuss further developments and early contributions published in the following years. A special focus is given to conferences as the ones in Oberwolfach, Bad Ischl and especially Gerolstein. We also report from the first International Conferences on Multiple Comparison Procedures (MCP)...

139. Closed Testing, Interim Analysis and Adaptations – History, Methods, and Modern Challenges

Franz König (Medical University of Vienna)

19/05/2026, 11:03

oral presentation

The strict control of the studywise Type I error rate has long been a cornerstone of confirmatory clinical trials. Closed testing and adaptive designs are two influential ideas in modern trial methodology, yet they emerged from different motivations: one from the need to rigorously control multiplicity when testing multiple hypotheses, the other from the desire to build flexibility into study...

38. Principles in Harmony: Closed Testing Meets the Partitioning and Projection Principle

Werner Brannath (University of Bremen)

19/05/2026, 11:21

oral presentation

In this talk, we will explore the relationship between the closed testing principle for multiple tests with family-wise error rate (FWER) control and the partitioning plus projection principle for constructing simultaneous confidence intervals. Starting with the simple observation that a multiple test with FWER control is formally equivalent to a one-sided simultaneous confidence interval for...

133. Graphical Approaches for Transparent Closed Testing

Martin Posch (Medical University of Vienna)

19/05/2026, 11:39

oral presentation

The closed testing principle is a fundamental framework to construct multiple testing procedures controlling the familywise error rate in the strong sense. However, a major challenge in the application of the principle is the number of intersection hypothesis tests that need to be specified, which increases exponentially in the number of elementary hypotheses tested and makes it difficult to...

16. Multiple hypotheses testing in clinical trials beyond familywise error rate control

Frank Bretz (Novartis)

19/05/2026, 11:57

oral presentation

We consider the problem of testing multiple null hypotheses, where a decision to reject or retain must be made for each one and embedding incorrect decisions into a real life context may inflict different losses. We argue that traditional methods controlling the Type I error rate may be too restrictive in this situation and that the standard familywise error rate may not be appropriate. For...