The pursuit of balance: An overview of covariate-adaptive randomization techniques in clinical trials

Randomization is fundamental to the design and conduct of clinical trials. Simple randomization ensures independence among subject treatment assignments and prevents potential selection biases, yet it does not guarantee balance in covariate distributions across treatment groups. Ensuring balance in important prognostic covariates across treatment groups is desirable for many reasons. A broad class of randomization methods for achieving balance are reviewed in this paper; these include block randomization, stratified randomization, minimization, and dynamic hierarchical randomization. Practical considerations arising from experience with using the techniques are described. A review of randomization methods used in practice in recent randomized clinical trials is also provided.