Customer Reviews

Common Statistical Methods for Clinical Research with SAS Examples

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This book covers all the SAS procedures applicable in clinical trials. It provides excellent examples to illustrate the methodology and the precise way to produce the results in SAS. It also gives the reader a very clear and detailed presentation of the output. It is so good that when we were validating Version 9 of SAS we took some examples from Walker's book that we tried to replicate. We had to keep in mind some minor differences between Version 9 and Verson 6 which is th basis for Walker's examples.

This book is very instructive for those interested in the pharmaceutical field or might already be in, especially for those not having a statistics degree. The different tests are explained and tell you for what situations they can be applied to. Good examples with SAS code and sample data are provided. For most problems, manual calculations are shown before doing them in SAS. This book was not that easy to digest though. Multiple reading will make the material more clear.

This book have a lot of examples with sas codes, outputs, and explanations of outputs, which is useful for practitioners. Recommended for practitioners, but not for serious statisticians who seek in-depth and accurate, a little more mathematical treatment of the topics instead of just explanations of sas codes/outputs.

I have been teaching biostatistics and data management for many years and on the first day of the year I always tell incoming MDs, masters and PhD level students who are not mathematicians to go out immediately and get this book. When they graduate, they frequently spontaneously tell me that it was excellent advice and they tell me the book "saved" them either in class or on their projects. I have never heard a complaint about this book and that is REALLY unusual with a statistics book.

Walker writes short chapters centered around common statistical methods. He gives a clean paragraph or two saying why you would use a statistic. Then he writes-up a little math, with the algebra usually worked out. After that the vast majority of the chapters are completed examples with datasets, code and output. The code and output are annotated with notes and numbered labels so you can quickly figure out what each part output and code means (in clear English).

If you get stuck in an overly theoretical statistics class get this book and you will be able to actually do the work you need for biostatistics projects that use SAS.

Great book to show the two main pieces of biostatistical studies; choosing the best statistical design for the clinical study, and how to run data points through SAS software to produce statistical output. Calculations by hand for the statistics are also presented, so the reader can see that the software yields the same answer. Best book I have seen showing explicitly how conduct a clinical research statistical study.

This is an okay book that has examples of statistical methods in research. It is a good source for learning what methods to use in which situations.

The book gets to the point with examples of SAS and biostatistics for clinical trials. The code samples average ~5-15 lines (excluding data rows), which are really small by the standards of the software industry. The key is to understand the mathematical basis of statistical theories like the Central Limit Theorem. If you have that background along with basic programming, then this book is perfect for rapid acceleration. Otherwise, background courses in statistics and introductory programming would be required. In any case, the book is excellent.