Individual treatment effect estimation in the presence of unobserved confounding using proxies: a cohort study in stage III non-small cell lung cancer.

ABSTRACT: Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) are the gold standard for estimating treatment effects but some important situations in cancer care require treatment effect estimates from observational data. We developed "Proxy based individual treatment effect modeling in cancer" (PROTECT) to estimate treatment effects from observational data when there are unobserved confounders, but proxy measurements of these confounders exist. We identified an unobserved confounder in observational cancer research: overall fitness. Proxy measurements of overall fitness exist like performance score, but the fitness as observed by the treating physician is unavailable for research. PROTECT reconstructs the distribution of the unobserved confounder based on these proxy measurements to estimate the treatment effect. P

SUBMITTER: van Amsterdam WAC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8989977 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature