Timing medical examinations via intensity functions

SUMMARY This paper studies a decision theoretic method for timing medical examinations. The specific model is motivated by screening asymptomatic individuals for hidden disease or risk-increasing conditions. Ideas and strategies may be applied more broadly to problems in which a stochastic process is monitored over time with a costly and possibly faulty data collection procedure. The decision space is modelled as a space of functions, termed screening intensity functions. Results include explicit rules for deciding whether or not an individual of given age and risk factors should be screened for a disease, and for deciding when an individual examined today should be examined again. Breast cancer screening

[1]  G. Friedman,et al.  Screening in chronic disease , 2004, Cancer Causes & Control.

[2]  Estimating asymptomatic duration in cancer: the AIDS connection. , 1997, Statistics in medicine.

[3]  H Straatman,et al.  Estimating lead time and sensitivity in a screening program without estimating the incidence in the screened group. , 1997, Biometrics.

[4]  K. Chaloner,et al.  The Equivalence of Constrained and Weighted Designs in Multiple Objective Design Problems , 1996 .

[5]  R. Bast,et al.  Toward an optimal algorithm for ovarian cancer screening with longitudinal tumor markers , 1995, Cancer.

[6]  A D Tsodikov,et al.  Discrete strategies of cancer post-treatment surveillance. Estimation and optimization problems. , 1995, Biometrics.

[7]  Recommendations on frequency of Pap test screening , 1995 .

[8]  Giovanni Parmigiani,et al.  On Optimal Screening Ages , 1993 .

[9]  Marvin Zelen,et al.  Optimal scheduling of examinations for the early detection of disease , 1993 .

[10]  Giovanni Parmigiani,et al.  A Cost-Utility Analysis of Alternative Strategies in Screening for Breast Cancer , 1993 .

[11]  I. Verdinelli,et al.  Bayesian designs for maximizing information and outcome , 1992 .

[12]  A D Tsodikov,et al.  On the optimal policies of cancer screening. , 1991, Mathematical biosciences.

[13]  M. D. Wilkinson,et al.  Management science , 1989, British Dental Journal.

[14]  T. Louis,et al.  Use of Tumour Lethality to Interpret Tumorigenicity Experiments Lacking Cause‐Of‐Death Data , 1988 .

[15]  S D Walter,et al.  Estimation of the duration of a pre-clinical disease state using screening data. , 1983, American journal of epidemiology.

[16]  D. Eddy.  A Mathematical Model for Timing Repeated Medical Tests , 1983, Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making.

[17]  M. Stromborg.  Screening For Early Detection , 1981, The American journal of nursing.

[18]  S. Moolgavkar,et al.  Effect of age on incidence of breast cancer in females. , 1979, Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

[19]  Michael Shwartz,et al.  A Mathematical Model Used to Analyze Breast Cancer Screening Strategies , 1978, Oper. Res..

[20]  Thomas A. Louis,et al.  Screening for the early detection of cancer— III. Estimation of disease natural history☆ , 1978 .

[21]  T. Louis,et al.  Screening for the early detection of cancer— I. The temporal natural history of a progressive disease state , 1978 .

[22]  T. Louis,et al.  Screening for the early detection of cancer- II. The impact of screening on the natural history of the disease , 1978 .

[23]  A. Whittemore,et al.  QUANTITATIVE THEORIES OF CARCINOGENESIS , 1978 .

[24]  A. K. Shahani,et al.  Towards models of screening for early detection of disease , 1977, Advances in Applied Probability.

[25]  J. Keller.  Optimum Checking Schedules for Systems Subject to Random Failure , 1974 .

[26]  Morton Klein,et al.  Surveillance Schedules for Medical Examinations , 1974 .

[27]  Marvin Zelen,et al.  On the theory of screening for chronic diseases , 1969 .

[28]  T. Lincoln,et al.  Analysis of repeated examinations for the detection of occult disease. , 1966, Health services research.

[29]  T. Lincoln,et al.  A Statistical Evaluation of Recurrent Medical Examinations , 1964 .

[30]  Richard E. Barlow,et al.  Optimum Checking Procedures , 1963 .