Premium
The power of prediction
Author(s) -
Burke Harry B.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/cncr.23675
Subject(s) - medicine , chart , futures contract , outcome (game theory) , disease , process (computing) , machine learning , intensive care medicine , statistics , computer science , mathematical economics , mathematics , financial economics , economics , operating system
Medical prediction has the power to chart patients' futures and to change their fate. It is extremely difficult to make predictions explicit, but it is important to do so in order to determine the best treatment for an individual patient. The challenge is to discover, model, and validate biological factors in order to capture the disease process represented by the factors, and to use the power of the disease to predict its outcome. Chen et al added bone mineral density to the Gail model and achieved an ROC of 0.62. Their research highlights how difficult it is to create clinically useful risk models.