360 likes | 582 Views
Variable Selection for Tailoring Treatment. L. Gunter, J. Zhu & S.A. Murphy ASA, Nov 11, 2008. Outline. Motivation Need for Variable Selection Characteristics of a Tailoring Variable A New Technique for Finding Tailoring Variables Comparisons Discussion. Motivating Example.
E N D
Variable Selection for Tailoring Treatment L. Gunter, J. Zhu & S.A. Murphy ASA, Nov 11, 2008
Outline • Motivation • Need for Variable Selection • Characteristics of a Tailoring Variable • A New Technique for Finding Tailoring Variables • Comparisons • Discussion
Simple Example Nefazodone - CBASP Trial Nefazodone Randomization Nefazodone + Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) 50+ baseline covariates, both categorical and continuous
Simple Example Nefazodone - CBASP Trial Which variables in X are important for tailoring the treatment?
Optimization • We want to select the treatment that “optimizes” R • The optimal choice of treatment may depend on X
Optimization • The optimal treatment(s) is given by • The value of d is
Need for Variable Selection • In clinical trials many pretreatment variables are collected to improve understanding and inform future treatment • Yet in clinical practice, only the most informative variables for tailoring treatment can be collected. • A combination of theory, clinical experience and statistical variable selection methods can be used to determine which variables are important.
Current Statistical Variable Selection Methods • Current statistical variable selection methods focus on finding good predictors of the response • Also need variables to help determine which treatment is best for which types of patients, e.g. tailoring variables • Experts typically have knowledge on which variables are good predictors, but intuition about tailoring variables is often lacking
What is a Tailoring Variable? • Tailoring variables help us determine which treatment is best • Tailoring variables qualitatively interact with the treatment; different values of the tailoring variable result in different best treatments. No Interaction Non-qualitative Interaction Qualitative interaction
Qualitative Interactions • Qualitative interactions have been discussed by many within stat literature (e.g. Byar & Corle,1977; Peto, 1982; Shuster & Van Eys, 1983; Gail & Simon, 1985; Yusuf et al., 1991; Senn, 2001; Lagakos, 2001) • Many express skepticism concerning validity of qualitative interactions when found in studies • Our approach for finding qualitative interactions should be robust to finding spurious results
Qualitative Interactions • We focus on two important factors • The magnitude of the interaction between the variable and the treatment indicator • The proportionof patients for whom the best choice of treatment changes given knowledge of the variable big interaction small interaction big interaction big proportion big proportion small proportion
Ranking Score S • Ranking Score: where • S estimates the quantity described by Parmigiani (2002) as the value of information.
Ranking Score S • Higher Sscorescorrespond to higher evidence of a qualitative interaction between X and A • We use this ranking in a variable selection algorithm to select important tailoring variables. • Avoid over-fitting in due to large number of X variables • Consider variables jointly
Variable Selection Algorithm • Select important predictors of R from (X, X*A) using Lasso -- Select tuning parameter using BIC • Select all X*A variables with nonzero S. -- Use predictors from 1. to form linear regression estimator of to form S. (using linear models)
Lasso • Lasso on (X, A, XA) (Tibshirani, 1996) • Lasso minimization criterion: where Zi is the vector of predictors for patient i, λ is a penalty parameter • Coefficient for A not penalized • Value of λ chosen by Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) (Zou, Hastie & Tibshirani, 2007)
Variable Selection Algorithm • Rank order (X, X*A)variables selected in steps 1 & 2 using a weighted Lasso -- Weight is 1 if variable is not an interaction -- Otherwise weight for kth interaction is -- is a small positive number. -- Produces a combined ranking of the selected (X, X*A)variables (say p variables).
Variable Selection Algorithm • Choose between variable subsets using a criterion that trades off maximal value of information and complexity. -- The ordering of the p variables creates p subsets of variables. Estimate the value of information for each of the p subsets -- Select the subset, k with largest
Simulations • Data simulated under wide variety of realistic decision making scenarios (with and without qualitative interactions) • Used X from the CBASP study, generated new Aand R • Compared: • New method: S with variable selection algorithm • Standard method: BIC Lasso on (X, A, XA) • 1000 simulated data sets: recorded percentage of time each variable’s interaction with treatment was selected for each method
Simulation Results * Over the total possible increase; 1000 data sets each of size 440
Simulation Results • Pros: when the model contained qualitative interactions, the new method gave significant increases in expected response over BIC-Lasso • Cons: the new method resulted in a slight increase in the number of spurious interactions over BIC-Lasso
Nefazodone - CBASP Trial Aim of the Nefazodone CBASP trial – to compare efficacy of three alternate treatments for major depressive disorder (MDD): • Nefazodone, • Cognitive behavioral-analysis system of psychotherapy (CBASP) • Nefazodone + CBASP Which variables might help tailor the depression treatment to each patient?
Nefazodone - CBASP Trial • For our analysis we used data from 440 patients with
Method Application and Confidence Measures • When applying new method to real data it is desirable to have a measure of reliability and to control family-wise error rate • We used bootstrap sampling to assess reliability • On each of 1000 bootstrap samples: • Run variable selection method • Record the interaction variables selected • Calculate selection percentages over bootstrap samples
Error Rate Thresholds • To help control family-wise error rate, compute the following inclusion thresholdsfor selection percentages: • Repeat 100 times • Permute interactions to remove effects from the data • Run method on 1000 bootstrap samples of permuted data • Calculate selection percentages over bootstrap samples • Record largest selection percentage over the p interactions • Threshold: (1-α)th percentile over 100 max selection percentages • Select all interactions with selection percentage greater than threshold
Error Rate Thresholds • When tested in simulations using new method, error rate threshold effectively controlled family-wise error rate • This augmentation of bootstrap sampling and thresholding was also tested on BIC Lasso and effectively controlled family-wise error rate in simulations
Nefazodone - CBASP Trial ALC OCD ALC OCD
Discussion • This method provides a list of potential tailoring variables while reducing the number of false leads. • Replication is required to confirm the usefulness of a tailoring variable. • Our long term goal is to generalize this method so that it can be used with data from Sequential, Multiple Assignment, Randomized Trials as illustrated by STAR*D.
Email Susan Murphy at samurphy@umich.edu for more information! • This seminar can be found at http://www.stat.lsa.umich.edu/~samurphy/seminars/ ASA11.11.08.ppt • Support: NIDA P50 DA10075, NIMH R01 MH080015 and NSF DMS 0505432 • Thanks for technical and data support go to • A. John Rush, MD, Betty Jo Hay Chair in Mental Health at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas • Martin Keller and the investigators who conducted the trial `A Comparison of Nefazodone, the Cognitive Behavioral-analysis System of Psychotherapy, and Their Combination for Treatment of Chronic Depression’
Lasso Weighting Scheme • Lasso minimization criterion equivalent to: so smaller wj means greater importance • Weights where • vj = 1for predictive variables • vj = for prescriptive variables
AGV Criterion • For a subset of k variables, X{k} the Average Gain in Value ( AGV) criterion is where • The criterion selects the subset of variables with the maximum proportion of increase in E[R] per variable
Simulation Results (S-score) ×Qualitative Interaction Spurious Interaction ×Qualitative Interaction Non-qualitative Interaction Spurious Interaction