A simple and robust method for partially matched samples using the p‐values pooling approach

This paper focuses on statistical analyses in scenarios where some samples from the matched pairs design are missing, resulting in partially matched samples. Motivated by the idea of meta‐analysis, we recast the partially matched samples as coming from two experimental designs and propose a simple yet robust approach based on the weighted Z‐test to integrate the p‐values computed from these two designs. We show that the proposed approach achieves better operating characteristics in simulations and a case study, compared with existing methods for partially matched samples. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.