Constructing treatment selection rules based on an estimated treatment effect function: different approaches to take stochastic uncertainty into account have a substantial effect on performance.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Today we are often interested in the predictive value of a continuous marker with respect to the expected difference in outcome between a new treatment and a standard treatment. We can investigate this in a randomized control trial, allowing us to assess interactions between treatment and marker and to construct a treatment selection rule. A first step is often to estimate the treatment effect as a function of the marker value. A variety of approaches have been suggested for the second step to define explicitly the rule to select the treatment, varying in the way to take uncertainty into account. Little is known about the merits of the different approaches.

Methods

Four construction principles for the second step are compared. They are based on the root of the est

SUBMITTER: Eckert M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6676573 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature