Bayesian Biostatistics and Diagnostic Medicine [Hardcover]

Lyle D. Broemeling (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584887672 | ISBN-13: 978-1584887676 | Publication Date: July 12, 2007 | Edition: 1

There are numerous advantages to using Bayesian methods in diagnostic medicine, which is why they are employed more and more today in clinical studies. Exploring Bayesian statistics at an introductory level, Bayesian Biostatistics and Diagnostic Medicine illustrates how to apply these methods to solve important problems in medicine and biology.

After focusing on the wide range of areas where diagnostic medicine is used, the book introduces Bayesian statistics and the estimation of accuracy by sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values for ordinal and continuous diagnostic measurements. The author then discusses patient covariate information and the statistical methods for estimating the agreement among observers. The book also explains the protocol review process for cancer clinical trials, how tumor responses are categorized, how to use WHO and RECIST criteria, and how Bayesian sequential methods are employed to monitor trials and estimate sample sizes.

With many tables and figures, this book enables readers to conduct a Bayesian analysis for a large variety of interesting and practical biomedical problems.

Editorial Reviews

Review

It is interesting to read this book on Bayesian biostatistics and diagnostic medicine. … this book has several unique features. … an excellent introductory textbook on Bayesian methods and their application in diagnostic medicine. Non-experienced statisticians may also find that the systematic overview of the classification and purposes of the three phases in clinical trials and the basic Bayesian theory are useful references and would benefit from the program codes, particularly WinBUGS codes. …
—Pharmaceutical Statistics, 2011, 10

…the inclusion of plenty of real examples plus details of the necessary BUGS code was a very positive attribute. Some of the data sets are available for the reader to analyse and this would further enhance understanding. Overall, it is certainly a useful read or reference book for a practicing statistician with a good baseline theoretical knowledge who would like to expand their interest in this specific field of application.
—A. Wade, University College London, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 2010

Drawing on his collaborative experiences with medical researchers and his long-standing interests in Bayesian methods, the author of this book shows how the Bayesian approach can be used to advantage when medical diagnosis is based on data with uncertainty. … a general strength of the book is careful discussion of study designs and protocols, which is a bonus relative to many biostatistical books written from a more narrow theory and methods perspective. … A real strength is the strong integration between models and concepts on the one hand, and real studies on the other hand. The inclusion of WinBUGS code is also a plus. … this book is highly recommended for anyone whose interests touch on the statistical side of diagnostic medicine.
—Biometrics, March 2009

About the Author

Lyle D. Broemeling, MEDICAL LAKE WA, U.S.A

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Chapman and Hall/CRC; 1 edition (July 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584887672
• ISBN-13: 978-1584887676
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,582,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lyle Broemeling is Director of Broemeling & Associates Inc. and has much experience in biostatistics. For approximately 25 years he was a Professor in the University of Texas System at the Medical Branch in Galveston, The School of Public Health in Houston, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. His specialty is medical test accuracy and he has written three books in this area. His company provides biostatistical consulting and short courses in the use of WinBUGS with applications to biostatistics with a focus on medical test accuracy and agreement between readers.

His last book is Bayesian Methods for Measures of Agreement,where the computations are based on WinBUGS, and the code can be accessed at http://medtestacc.blogspot.com. His latest book, Advanced Bayesian Methods for Medical Test Accuracy, will be available in July 2011.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars first Bayesian book on diagnostic medicine, January 31, 2008

By 

Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bayesian Biostatistics and Diagnostic Medicine (Hardcover)

Lyle Broemeling was a Professor at the prestigious Biostatistics Unit in the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at University of Texas in Houston. He retired this year and I had the good fortune to meet him and talk with him at the JSM in Salt Lake City in August 2007. In my recent job at UBC I had the assignment to help out an imaging company that determines the status of a subjects cancer tumor in a double blinded placebo controlled trial. We had the job of helping them write the imagong data charter abd helped to construct rules for evaluating the reader quality. I wish I had the book when I was working on that problem.

To my knowledge this is the first book written about statistical techniques in the medical diagnosis area that is written exclusively in the Bayesian framework. The author makes a very good point for the Bayesian approach. He sees many applications where data from earlier trials of similar content can be incorporated. The Bayesian approach incorporates it naturally in the prior distribution. A comparable classical approach would have to be some form of meta-analysis and would be awkward and very unnatural.

The book has a very enjoyable reading style and in the first three chapters provides an overall introduction and basic ideas about diagnostic medical and procedures. Chapter four provides a basic introduction to Bayesian method. He also introduces the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method for implementing the more sophisticated Bayesian procedures and he discusses the Winbugs software that is the most commonly used and well debugged freeware available to students and researchers. MCMC has applications in other areas but Bayesian statistics is one of the most commonly used area of application for statisticians and was the motivation for the developers in England.

The rest of the book deals with the applications in diagnostic medicine and includes techniques for evaluating the accuracy of the diagnostic tool under study in a clinical trial let's say. It also includes methods for evaluating the degree of agreement or disagreement among those radiologists assigned to read the images.

The author does not go into the frequentist approach to diagnostic medicine but he does reference two excellent texts that use the classical (frequentist) approach.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone with a curiosity or interest in finding applications of Bayesian methods and especially those that have a practical interest but not a strong background instatistics or Bayesian statistic methods.