A comparison of statistical methods for the study of etiologic heterogeneity.

ABSTRACT: Cancer epidemiologic research has traditionally been guided by the premise that certain diseases share an underlying etiology, or cause. However, with the rise of molecular and genomic profiling, attention has increasingly focused on identifying subtypes of disease. As subtypes are identified, it is natural to ask the question of whether they share a common etiology or in fact arise from distinct sets of risk factors. In this context, epidemiologic questions of interest include (1) whether a risk factor of interest has the same effect across all subtypes of disease and (2) whether risk factor effects differ across levels of each individual tumor marker of which the subtypes are comprised. A number of statistical models have been proposed to address these questions. In an effort to determin

SUBMITTER: Zabor EC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5677262 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature