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Main Authors: Dong, Larry, Pullenayegum, Eleanor, Thiébaut, Rodolphe, Saarela, Olli
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02736
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author Dong, Larry
Pullenayegum, Eleanor
Thiébaut, Rodolphe
Saarela, Olli
author_facet Dong, Larry
Pullenayegum, Eleanor
Thiébaut, Rodolphe
Saarela, Olli
contents An optimal dynamic treatment regime (DTR) is a sequence of decision rules aimed at providing the best course of treatments individualized to patients. While conventional DTR estimation uses longitudinal data, such data can also be irregular, where patient-level variables can affect visit times, treatment assignments and outcomes. In this work, we first extend the target trial framework - a paradigm to estimate statistical estimands specified under hypothetical randomized trials using observational data - to the DTR context; this extension allows treatment regimes to be defined with intervenable visit times. We propose an adapted version of G-computation marginalizing over random effects for rewards that encapsulate a treatment strategy's value. To estimate components of the G-computation formula, we then articulate a Bayesian joint model to handle correlated random effects between the outcome, visit and treatment processes. We show via simulation studies that, in the estimation of regime rewards, failure to account for the observational treatment and visit processes produces bias which can be removed through joint modeling. We also apply our proposed method on data from INSPIRE 2 and 3 studies to estimate optimal injection cycles of Interleukin 7 to treat HIV-infected individuals.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_02736
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Estimating Optimal Dynamic Treatment Regimes Using Irregularly Observed Data: A Target Trial Emulation and Bayesian Joint Modeling Approach
Dong, Larry
Pullenayegum, Eleanor
Thiébaut, Rodolphe
Saarela, Olli
Methodology
An optimal dynamic treatment regime (DTR) is a sequence of decision rules aimed at providing the best course of treatments individualized to patients. While conventional DTR estimation uses longitudinal data, such data can also be irregular, where patient-level variables can affect visit times, treatment assignments and outcomes. In this work, we first extend the target trial framework - a paradigm to estimate statistical estimands specified under hypothetical randomized trials using observational data - to the DTR context; this extension allows treatment regimes to be defined with intervenable visit times. We propose an adapted version of G-computation marginalizing over random effects for rewards that encapsulate a treatment strategy's value. To estimate components of the G-computation formula, we then articulate a Bayesian joint model to handle correlated random effects between the outcome, visit and treatment processes. We show via simulation studies that, in the estimation of regime rewards, failure to account for the observational treatment and visit processes produces bias which can be removed through joint modeling. We also apply our proposed method on data from INSPIRE 2 and 3 studies to estimate optimal injection cycles of Interleukin 7 to treat HIV-infected individuals.
title Estimating Optimal Dynamic Treatment Regimes Using Irregularly Observed Data: A Target Trial Emulation and Bayesian Joint Modeling Approach
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02736