Digital twins and Bayesian dynamic borrowing: Two recent approaches for incorporating historical control data

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in incorporating external control data for designing and evaluating randomized clinical trials (RCT). This may decrease costs and shorten inclusion times by reducing sample sizes. For small populations, with limited recruitment, this can be especially important. Bayesian dynamic borrowing (BDB) has been a popular choice as it claims to protect against potential prior data conflict. Digital twins (DT) has recently been proposed as another method to utilize historical data. DT, also known as PROCOVA (TM), is based on constructing a prognostic score from historical control data, typically using machine learning. This score is included in a pre-specified ANCOVA as the primary analysis of the RCT. The promise of this idea is power increase while guaranteeing strong type 1 error control. In this paper, we apply analytic derivations and simulations to analyze and discuss examples of these two approaches. We conclude that BDB and DT, although similar in scope, have fundamental differences which need be considered in the specific application. The inflation of the type 1 error is a serious issue for BDB, while more evidence is needed of a tangible value of DT for real RCTs.