Dealing With Treatment-Confounder Feedback and Sparse Follow-up in Longitudinal Studies: Application of a Marginal Structural Model in a Multiple Sclerosis Cohort.
Am J Epidemiol
; 190(5): 908-917, 2021 05 04.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33125039
ABSTRACT
The beta-interferons are widely prescribed platform therapies for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). We accessed a cohort of patients with relapsing-onset MS from British Columbia, Canada (1995-2013), to examine the potential survival advantage associated with beta-interferon exposure using a marginal structural model. Accounting for potential treatment-confounder feedback between comorbidity, MS disease progression, and beta-interferon exposure, we found an association between beta-interferon exposure of at least 6 contiguous months and improved survival (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.63, 95% confidence interval 0.47, 0.86). We also assessed potential effect modifications by sex, baseline age, or baseline disease duration, and found these factors to be important effect modifiers. Sparse follow-up due to variability in patient contact with the health system is one of the biggest challenges in longitudinal analyses. We considered several single-level and multilevel multiple imputation approaches to deal with sparse follow-up and disease progression information; both types of approach produced similar estimates. Compared to ad hoc imputation approaches, such as linear interpolation (HR = 0.63), and last observation carried forward (HR = 0.65), all multiple imputation approaches produced a smaller hazard ratio (HR = 0.53), although the direction of effect and conclusions drawn concerning the survival advantage remained the same.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Interferon beta
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Esclerose Múltipla
Tipo de estudo:
Etiology_studies
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Incidence_studies
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Observational_studies
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Prognostic_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Adult
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Female
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Humans
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Male
País como assunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2021
Tipo de documento:
Article