Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Xia, Junwen, Zhang, Jingxiao, Kong, Dehan
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11255
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866909981913120768
author Xia, Junwen
Zhang, Jingxiao
Kong, Dehan
author_facet Xia, Junwen
Zhang, Jingxiao
Kong, Dehan
contents Quantile optimal treatment regimes (OTRs) aim to assign treatments that maximize a specified quantile of patients' outcomes. Compared to treatment regimes that target the mean outcomes, quantile OTRs offer fairer regimes when a lower quantile is selected, as it improves outcomes for vulnerable patients. In this paper, we propose a novel method for estimating quantile OTRs by reformulating the problem as a successive classification task, solvable via training a sequence of classifiers, each successive classifier built on the output of its predecessors. This reformulation enables us to leverage the powerful machine learning technique to enhance computational efficiency and handle complex decision boundaries. We also investigate the estimation of quantile OTRs when outcomes are discrete, a setting that has received limited attention in the literature. A key challenge is that direct extensions of existing methods to discrete outcomes often lead to inconsistency and ineffectiveness issues. To overcome this, we introduce a smoothing technique that maps discrete outcomes to continuous surrogates, enabling consistent and effective estimation. We provide theoretical guarantees to support our methodology, and demonstrate its superior performance through comprehensive simulation studies and real-data analysis.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_11255
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Successive classification learning for estimating quantile optimal treatment regimes
Xia, Junwen
Zhang, Jingxiao
Kong, Dehan
Methodology
Quantile optimal treatment regimes (OTRs) aim to assign treatments that maximize a specified quantile of patients' outcomes. Compared to treatment regimes that target the mean outcomes, quantile OTRs offer fairer regimes when a lower quantile is selected, as it improves outcomes for vulnerable patients. In this paper, we propose a novel method for estimating quantile OTRs by reformulating the problem as a successive classification task, solvable via training a sequence of classifiers, each successive classifier built on the output of its predecessors. This reformulation enables us to leverage the powerful machine learning technique to enhance computational efficiency and handle complex decision boundaries. We also investigate the estimation of quantile OTRs when outcomes are discrete, a setting that has received limited attention in the literature. A key challenge is that direct extensions of existing methods to discrete outcomes often lead to inconsistency and ineffectiveness issues. To overcome this, we introduce a smoothing technique that maps discrete outcomes to continuous surrogates, enabling consistent and effective estimation. We provide theoretical guarantees to support our methodology, and demonstrate its superior performance through comprehensive simulation studies and real-data analysis.
title Successive classification learning for estimating quantile optimal treatment regimes
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11255