Modeling in Medical Decision Making: A Bayesian Approach. Giovanni Parmigiani. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2002, 266 pp., $69.95, hardcover. ISBN 0-471-98608-9.

[摘要] Modeling in Medical Decision Making describes how Bayesian analysis can be applied to a wide variety of problems. The book focuses on comprehensive quantitative analysis of many types of problems in medical research and decision making. In such a quantitative book, there should be balanced presentation of concepts in English and algebra, with clear explanations of the meanings of all symbols and careful consideration of all assumptions lurking behind the symbols. The medical science cited should be realistic. This book achieves this goal to a high, but not complete, degree. For example, the author’s extensive knowledge of breast cancer and screening is evident. However, the extensive metaanalysis of treatment of migraine headache clearly illustrates the mathematics, but not the substance, of the metaanalysis. The only statement about the dependent variable is “the primary sources reported effects on a variety of scales, including ordinal measures of well-being”; without attention to what the outcome is, it is difficult …

[学科分类] 过敏症与临床免疫学