Clinical Trial Results Deck

About this template

Twelve slides for a conference talk

A 12-slide format for presenting trial or observational study results at a conference session, an internal research seminar, or a review committee. The agenda follows the standard readout flow: study design, subject disposition, efficacy, safety, subgroup analysis, and the regulatory path. It condenses a study for presentation and does not replace a protocol or a clinical study report.

Six agenda lines, three body pairs

The file contains only three divider-and-body pairs: study design, subject disposition, and efficacy results. Safety, subgroup analysis and the regulatory path have no slides. Either duplicate a divider and body slide together three more times, or trim the agenda to three lines. Presenting efficacy with no safety data pushes the whole Q&A in that direction. Note too that item three reads “efficacy evaluation” on the agenda but “efficacy results” on the divider and body slide; pick one.

The order to fill it in

1. Study design: a phase 3 double-blind trial, 1:1 versus placebo, 14 domestic sites. Add the primary endpoint here – only one.
2. Disposition: 892 enrolled from 1,860 screened, 74 discontinued, 818 analyzed. Keep 892 – 74 = 818 consistent and state that the 8.3% dropout rate is over enrolment.
3. Efficacy: 62.4% versus 41.1% response at week 24, hazard ratio 0.68, CI 0.54-0.86, all on one slide. With effect size and interval present, the p value needs no emphasis.
4. The four cards on slide 10 (892 enrolled, week 24 primary timepoint, HR 0.68, 8.2% serious adverse events) just restate those three slides; update both together.
5. The trend bars on slide 11 are a response rate over time: 18 at week 4, 39 at week 12, 62 at week 24, 71 at week 52.

Keeping the numbers aligned

The week-24 bar of 62 is the same figure as the 62.4% response rate in the body, so change both or neither. Showing the placebo arm needs extra shapes; four bars will not carry two curves. Relative risk reduction is (control rate – treatment rate) / control rate x 100, while the absolute difference is a subtraction: 41.1% to 62.4% is 21.3 percentage points. Note also that a response rate is better when higher, whereas a hazard ratio of 0.68 means fewer events – the two point in opposite directions. Unless they come from the same endpoint, say on the slide what the hazard ratio counts, such as time to relapse. The bars are shapes, so rescale heights as value divided by the largest value.

Where the Q&A gets stuck

• Showing only a p value; large samples make trivial differences significant.
• Excluding dropouts from the denominator without stating whether the analysis set is ITT or per protocol.
• Leaving the 8.2% serious adverse event rate on the card with no safety section behind it – that becomes the first question.
• Presenting slide 9 with the sample readout still on it (62% against 38% remission, p below 0.001). Overwrite it with your own results, or you are reporting numbers that do not exist.