gms | German Medical Science

51. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e. V. (gmds)

10. - 14.09.2006, Leipzig

Detecting an interaction between treatment and a continuous covariate: a comparison between two approaches

Meeting Abstract

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  • Willi Sauerbrei - Institut für Medizinische Biometrie und Informatik, Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Freiburg
  • Patrick Royston - MRC, London

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e.V. (gmds). 51. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie. Leipzig, 10.-14.09.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. Doc06gmds054

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/gmds2006/06gmds117.shtml

Published: September 1, 2006

© 2006 Sauerbrei et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

Text

With larger clinical trials, for example those incorporating measurements of novel genetic markers, there is considerable interest in investigating whether a treatment effect is similar in all patients or whether a subgroup of patients profits more from a treatment than the remainder. Detection of such treatment-covariate interactions is one of the most important current topics in clinical research. For a continuous covariate Z the usual approach to analysis is to categorise Z into groups according to cutpoint(s) and to analyse the interaction in a model with main effects and multiplicative terms. The cutpoint approach raises several well-known and difficult issues for the analyst.

Recently Royston & Sauerbrei (2004) [1] extended the multivariable fractional polynomial approach [2], which combines variable selection with determination of functional relationships for continuous predictors, to investigate treatment-covariate interactions. Covariates may be binary, categorical or continuous. Cutpoints are avoided in this approach.

To facilitate the interpretation of estimates of a treatment effect derived from different but potentially overlapping subgroups of clinical trial data, defined with respect to a continuous covariate, Bonetti & Gelber (2000) [3] introduced the “subpopulation treatment effect pattern plot” (STEPP) method. We will discuss differences between the fractional polynomial and STEPP approaches and investigate their ability to detect and display treatment/covariate interactions in examples from randomised controlled trials in cancer. For the MFPI approach we also investigate type I errors by means of simulation [4].


References

1.
Royston P, Sauerbrei W. A new approach to modelling interactions between treatment and continuous covariates in clinical trials by using fractional polynomials. Stat Med. 2004; 23:2509-2525.
2.
Sauerbrei W, Royston P. Building multivariable prognostic and diagnostic models: transformation of the predictors by using fractional polynomials. JRSS-A. 1999; 165:71-94.
3.
Bonetti M, Gelber RD. A graphical method to assess treatment-covariate interactions using the Cox model on subsets of the data. Stat Med. 2000; 19:2595-2609.
4.
Sauerbrei W, Royston P, Zapien K. Detecting an interaction between treatment and a continuous covariate: a comparison between two approaches. submitted.