Increased power to detect gene-environment interaction using siblings controls.
Ann Epidemiol
; 15(9): 705-11, 2005 Oct.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-16157257
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE:
Interest is increasing in studying gene-environment (G x E) interaction in disease etiology. Study designs using related controls as a more appropriate control group for evaluating G x E interactions have been proposed but often assume unrealistic numbers of available relative controls. To evaluate a more realistic design, we studied the relative efficiency of a 10.5 case-sibling-control design compared with a classical 11 case-unrelated-control design and examined the effect of the analysis strategy.METHODS:
Simulations were performed to assess the efficiency of a 10.5 case-sibling-control design relative to a classical 11 case-unrelated-control design under a variety of assumptions for estimating G x E interaction. Both matched and unmatched analysis strategies were examined.RESULTS:
When using a matched analysis, the 11 case-unrelated-control design was almost always more powerful than the 10.5 case-sibling-control design. In contrast, when using an unmatched analysis, the 10.5 case-sibling-control design was almost always more powerful than the 11 case-unrelated-control design. The unconditional analysis of the case-sibling-control design to estimate G x E interaction, however, requires no correlation in E between siblings.CONCLUSIONS:
In most settings, a matched analysis may be required and a 11 case-unrelated-control design will be more powerful than a 10.5 case-sibling-control design.
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Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Phenotype
/
Matched-Pair Analysis
Type of study:
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Ann Epidemiol
Journal subject:
EPIDEMIOLOGIA
Year:
2005
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
France