Bandit designs

Bandit design. An adaptive allocation design based on ideas of sequential decisionmaking with the following features. (1) Results to date are used to determine which treatment a patient will receive. (2) The patient does not necessarily receive whatever treatment is currently believed to be the best because it is recognized that there may be value in studying less-studied treatments. (3) The allocation rule attempts to maximize the (discounted) totality of future patients on the better treatment (including the one about to be treated). 

Adaptive designs. Clinical trials in which the probability that a patient receives a given treatment is, to some extent at least, determined by the results on patients who have been treated so far. Examples are play the winner designs and bandits. 

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