Week 4.1: Prognosis Flashcards
What is prognosis?
The risk of future health outcomes in people with a given disease or health condition.
What are the four streams of prognosis research?
- The clinical course of a condition
- Factors associated with prognosis
- Statistical models to predict individual risk
- Tailored treatment based on prognostic factors
What are the key study types used in prognosis research?
- Clinical observation
- Prospective and retrospective cohort studies
- Systematic reviews of cohort studies
- RCTs
What sources of bias may be present in clinical observation?
- Patient’s are not seen systematically in long-term follow-up.
- Follow-up is only on a subset of patients.
- Large numbers of patients are needed to get accurate estimates.
What does a prospective cohort study involve?
Exposure is identified and the outcome data is collected.
What does a retrospective cohort study involve?
Outcome data is collected and then the exposure is identified.
What difficulty is faced with retrospective studies?
Retrospectives make it difficult to determine the portion lost to follow-up.
What does a systematic review of cohort studies provide?
Provides transparent and minimally biased overview of the best data available regarding prognosis.
What hidden prognostic information is present in a RCT?
- Control group: natural history
- Intervention group: clinical course/treated history
What are the four prognosis questions?
- P: patient or problem
- I: intervention or issue
- O: outcome
- T: time
What is the Kaplan-Meier survival curve?
The Kaplan–Meier estimator, also known as the product limit estimator, is a non-parametric statistic used to estimate the survival function (lack of event) from lifetime data, by comparing two groups.
