Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation

Online

Open Access
Publication Date:
March 2012
ISSN:
1557-4679
DOI:
10.1515/1557-4679.1395

See all formats and pricing

Online
Individual Subscription Online only
Euro [D] 99.00
RRP for USA, Canada, Mexico
US$ 149.00 *
Print
Individual Subscription Online only
Euro [D] 285.00
RRP for USA, Canada, Mexico
US$ 384.00 *
Print + Online
Individual Subscription Online only
Euro [D] 342.00
RRP for USA, Canada, Mexico
US$ 461.00 *
*Prices subject to change. Shipping costs will be added if applicable.

Ed. by Hubbard, Alan E. / van der Laan, Mark J.

1 Issue per year

IMPACT FACTOR 2011: 1.284

Evaluating a New Marker for Risk Prediction Using the Test Tradeoff: An Update

Stuart G. Baker / Ben Van Calster / Ewout W. Steyerberg

1National Cancer Institute

1Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Erasmus MC

1Erasmus MC

Citation Information: The International Journal of Biostatistics. Volume 8, Issue 1, Pages 1–37, ISSN (Online) 1557-4679, DOI: 10.1515/1557-4679.1395, March 2012

Publication History:
Published Online:
2012-03-22

Most of the methodological literature on evaluating an additional marker for risk prediction involves purely statistical measures of classification performance. A disadvantage of a purely statistical measure is the difficulty in deciding the improvement in the measure that would make inclusion of the additional marker worthwhile. In contrast, a medical decision making approach can weigh the cost or harm of ascertaining an additional marker against the benefit of a higher true positive rate for a given false positive rate that may be associated with risk prediction involving the additional marker. An appealing form of the medical decision making approach involves the risk threshold, which is the risk at which the expected utility of treatment and no treatment is the same. In this framework, a readily interpretable evaluation of the net benefit of an additional marker is the test tradeoff corresponding to the risk threshold. The test tradeoff is the minimum number of tests for a new marker that need to be traded for a true positive to yield an increase in the net benefit of risk prediction with the additional marker. For a sensitivity analysis the test tradeoff is computed over multiple risk thresholds. This article updates the theory and estimation of the test tradeoff. An example is provided.

Keywords: decision curves; relative utility curves; receiver-operating characteristic curve; risk threshold; test tradeoff

Comments (0)

Please log in or register to comment.