Regression for skewed biomarker outcomes subject to pooling.
Biometrics
; 70(1): 202-11, 2014 Mar.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24521420
Epidemiological studies involving biomarkers are often hindered by prohibitively expensive laboratory tests. Strategically pooling specimens prior to performing these lab assays has been shown to effectively reduce cost with minimal information loss in a logistic regression setting. When the goal is to perform regression with a continuous biomarker as the outcome, regression analysis of pooled specimens may not be straightforward, particularly if the outcome is right-skewed. In such cases, we demonstrate that a slight modification of a standard multiple linear regression model for poolwise data can provide valid and precise coefficient estimates when pools are formed by combining biospecimens from subjects with identical covariate values. When these x-homogeneous pools cannot be formed, we propose a Monte Carlo expectation maximization (MCEM) algorithm to compute maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs). Simulation studies demonstrate that these analytical methods provide essentially unbiased estimates of coefficient parameters as well as their standard errors when appropriate assumptions are met. Furthermore, we show how one can utilize the fully observed covariate data to inform the pooling strategy, yielding a high level of statistical efficiency at a fraction of the total lab cost.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Algoritmos
/
Funciones de Verosimilitud
/
Modelos Lineales
Tipo de estudio:
Health_economic_evaluation
/
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Female
/
Humans
/
Pregnancy
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Biometrics
Año:
2014
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos
Pais de publicación:
Estados Unidos