Despite advances in statistical approaches towards clinical outcome prediction, these innovations are insufficiently utilized in medical research. This book provides information on how modern statistical concepts and regression methods can be applied.

Prediction models are important in various fields, including medicine, physics, meteorology, and finance. Prediction models will become more relevant in the medical field with the increase in knowledge on potential predictors of outcome, e.g. from genetics. Also, the number of applications will increase, e.g. with targeted early detection of disease, and individualized approaches to diagnostic testing and treatment. The current era of evidence-based medicine asks for an individualized approach to medical decision-making. Evidence-based medicine has a central place for meta-analysis to summarize results from randomized controlled trials; similarly prediction models may summarize the effects of predictors to provide individu- ized predictions of a diagnostic or prognostic outcome. Why Read This Book? My motivation for working on this book stems primarily from the fact that the development and applications of prediction models are often suboptimal in medical publications. With this book I hope to contribute to better understanding of relevant issues and give practical advice on better modelling strategies than are nowadays widely used. Issues include: (a) Better predictive modelling is sometimes easily possible; e.g. a large data set with high quality data is available, but all continuous predictors are dich- omized, which is known to have several disadvantages.

This book provides insight and practical illustrations of how advanced statistical concepts can be applied in prognostic medical research.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Applications of prediction models.- Study design for prediction models.- Statistical models for prediction.- Overfitting and optimism in prediction models.- Choosing between alternative statistical models.- Dealing with missing values.- Case study on dealing with missing values.- Coding of categorical and continuous predictors.- Restrictions on candidate predictors.- Selection of main effects.- Assumptions in regression models: Additivity and linearity.- Modern estimation methods.- Estimation with external methods.- Evaluation of performance.- Clinical usefulness.- Validation of prediction models.- Presentation formats.- Patterns of external validity.- Updating for a new setting.- Updating for a multiple settings.- Prediction of a binary outcome: 30-day mortality after acute myocardial infarction.- Case study on survival analysis: Prediction of secondary cardiovascular events.- Lessons from case studies.