Quantifying Potential Immortal Time Bias in Observational Studies in Acute Severe Infection.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Immortal time bias is a spurious or exaggerated protective association that commonly arises in naive analyses of observational data. It occurs when people receive the intervention because they survive, rather than survive because they received the intervention. Studies in conditions with substantial early mortality, such as acute severe infections, are particularly vulnerable.

Methods

We developed IMMORTOOL, an R package accessible via a user-friendly web interface (https://petedodd.github.io/IMMORTOOL-live/). This tool will estimate the potential for immortal time bias using empiric or assumed data on the distributions of time to intervention and time to event. Assumptions are that no other biases are present and that the intervention does not affect the outcome.

SUBMITTER: Yates TA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12006797 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature