Andrew Vickers @VickersBiostats Twitter profile

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@BinorRaja

Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

The Charlson Comorbidity Index is based on a single study of 559 patients at one NYC hospital in 1987. That’s why HIV is six times worse than diabetes. Two questions: 1) why do scientists not check their sources? 2) why are we still using this?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Statistics education should abandon teaching of computation (eg calculate z from the data) and focus exclusively on conceptual issues (eg inference vs. estimation; what are multivariable models?) and how to interpret statistical results (eg p=.063, conclude what?). Discuss.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

I am studying informed consent for clinical trials, wanting to see how we can simplify this process for patients. We give a brief questionnaire asking about their consent experience. But I have to first give patients a consent form that is 10 pages long.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

This is the normal Ioannidis thing about research being terrible. The article has a fatal flaw though: he says we shouldn't take a certain action without good evidence, but NOT taking that action is also a decision that requires evidence.

METRICStanford

@METRICStanford

5 years

A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data Op-ed in @statnews by John Ioannidis @METRICStanford

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

I generally dislike papers whining how about bad published research is, but this is important. Machine learning in medicine seems to exist well outside of the mainstream of established methods: ~90% internal validation only, ~95% ignore calibration.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Generic statistician type of moan: Please stop using Bonferroni correction when testing a limited number of correlated hypotheses (eg is there an effect on anxiety? what about depression?). I know it makes y'all feel very statistically rigorous but it is unhelpful and invalid.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

I guess I should retweet my own quote...

Arnav Agarwal

@ArnavAgarwalMD

7 years

The irony of how we think of #research & #medicine in one simple light-hearted slide. #EBM

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

I asked the editor of a medical journal out on a date. She said no, but told me I could transfer the date request to her sister, who would charge $3,500 if she accepted.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

Big news! has been completely updated and revamped. Code, tutorials, guides, bibliographies, videos and more! Amazing job by @ShaunPorwal @statistishdan

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

Prediction modelers: please be like @ashclift @JuliaHCox @GSCollins & write papers like . Large data set, careful evaluation of different modeling approaches, evaluation of calibration (which appears not to exist in ML world), decision curve analysis

Development and internal-external validation of statistical and machine learning models for breast...

Objective To develop a clinically useful model that estimates the 10 year risk of breast cancer related mortality in women (self-reported female sex) with breast cancer of any stage, comparing...

www.bmj.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Proposal: clinical journals should replace the "conclusion" section of abstracts with "Implications for Clinical Practice" and "Implications for Research". One key point: Perfectly fine to have "implications for Clinical Practice" be "None".

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Surgeon: Surgery better than radiation? Great paper! Radiation oncologist: Radiation worse than surgery? Paper is trash! Methodologist: the study was well done, though more exploration of residual confounding would be of benefit.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

COVID has been taken as evidence of so many things being broken, like our healthcare system, our government and our supply chains. But what about clinical trials? Over 3m cases but only a trivial number on trials. Clinical trials need a top-to-bottom rethink.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Just sat through another 45 minute presentation on a Big Data / Machine Learning project, where goal is about clinical decision-making and YET AGAIN, endless discussion of data flow, database architecture, boosting algorithms etc and zero reference to bias.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 months

Beautiful example of how a study demonstrating a statistical association is quickly turned into one making a causal claim.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Avoid ending your paper with a vague call for “further research”. You should be able to specify next research steps based on your findings (otherwise, what value was your paper?). Also remember that further research on one subject means not doing research on another.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Can we declare war on acronyms? I'm tired of reading stuff like: "[in] men with csPCa in T-PBx, csPCa was also present in NT-PBx [in 17.2%]". Rule of thumb: if you wouldn't use an acronym in speech, don't do so in writing. @KristinSainani

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Don’t know where this is from, but I like it.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

I was taught that Florence Nightingale was the first nurse, and went around mopping the brows of fevered soldiers. She was, in fact, a statistician and based her recommendations largely on data. …

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

Keep getting told "I use MRI to follow active surveillance pts. If MRI is clean, I forgo the biopsy." Never was an evidence-based strategy. We now show it is harmful.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Quality of code in biostatistics is poor. . Key points: ~1/3rd papers with complex stats didn't use statistical code, 0 of 16 sets of code scored even "moderate" on 3 basic criteria for good coding practice.

Statistical code for clinical research papers in a high-impact specialist medical journal

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Answered a question about this and got a good response. So to distribute more widely: Writing Up Clinical Research: A Statistician’s View

Writing Up Clinical Research: A Statistician’s View

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Seven Common Errors in Decision Curve Analysis . Published by the very eminent @f2harrell

Statistical Thinking - Seven Common Errors in Decision Curve Analysis

I describe seven common errors in decision curve analysis. Avoidance of such errors will make decision curve analysis more reliable and useful.

www.fharrell.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Great title: In a meta-analysis, the I-squared statistic does not tell us how much the effect size varies. @Richard_D_Riley

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

I’ve heard it a million times: don’t give a doctor a risk prediction for a patient, they can’t handle it. You have to give them a cut-point and put patients into hi vs. lo risk-groups so they can make an easy clinical decision. Any reason to believe this argument is true?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

We graduate Masters’ and PhD statisticians with great math theory, but little biomedical knowledge, rudimentary coding skills and often poor language proficiency. We reward first author papers about esoteric methods but not second author papers that advance biomedicine 2/3

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

A random thought from "What is a p-value anyway?"

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

An example of a better alternative to box and whisker plots.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

How heterogeneity & risk of bias is typically done in meta-analysis. 1. Calculate I2, Cohran's Q, p value for each meta-analysis 2. Report a risk of bias table 3. Completely ignore the findings of 1 & 2 in results, discussion & conclusion @Richard_D_Riley

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Medical prediction models typically have binary endpoint & give risk of cancer/death/MI etc. Any examples of prediction models with continuous endpoint? eg.amount pain relief from surgery. @f2harrell @mike__kattan @BenVanCalster @ESteyerberg @MaartenvSmeden @GSCollins

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

I just read a psychiatry textbook. There was nothing in there about removing the prostate as a treatment for anxiety. #ActiveSurveillance @uroegg @dr_coops

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Common practice & recommended in several papers is to biopsy man with -ve MRI if PSA density > 0.15. But where did this cut-point come from (brief answer: a pretty random paper in the pre-MRI era) and is it rational (brief answer: no)?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

A major achievement from a collaborative group of 12 statisticians, including the incomparable @f2harrell

European Urology

@EUplatinum

4 years

Guidelines for Reporting of Figures and Tables for Clinical Research in Urology #VisualAbstract @VickersBiostats @f2harrell @statistishdan

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

The discussion by biostatisticians about poor stats understanding of investigators is directed outwards. We need a hard look in the mirror. We have been prioritizing abstract math over scientific collaboration for years, in graduate education and in our promotion structure 1/3

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Question from clinician: "Andrew: can you look at this study and explain the statistical analysis to me? We want to write a letter to the editor complaining that the paper is unsound and want to know what to say".

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

New statisticians joining my team have a training schedule that includes, alongside R workflow etc., rounding with clinicians and seeing procedures.

Richard Riley (R²)

@Richard_D_Riley

1 year

All statisticians & data scientists training for healthcare research would benefit from dedicated time observing clinicians, GPs & health professionals make decisions & seeing the pathway involved Should be part of any MSc in med stats/health data science, & training fellowships

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Happy to forward a zoom link to anyone who wants to join.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Biostatistics Service

@MSKBiostats

3 years

📅Join us for the next #MSKBiostats seminar on Wed 3/16 10:30am ET

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Doug was my mentor. Most of the time I say anything smart, I’m just channeling Doug.

ASA History of Statistics Special Interest Group

@HOS_ASA

2 years

Douglas Altman (12 Jul 1948-3 June 2018) UK. “One of the most influential medical statisticians of the past 50 years”. Bradford Hill Medal 1997, BMJ Lifetime Achievement Award 2015, for spearheading reform of medical research reliability & reporting. 1/2

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

9 months

I'm not sure I look at p=0.059 and leave it at "no significant difference"

Stacy Loeb, MD

@LoebStacy

9 months

Nice summary of the PREVENT randomized trial showing no significant difference in infections, retention or bleeding between transrectal prostate biopsy with targeted prophylaxis vs transperineal biopsy without antibiotics - @EdwardSchaeffer #DSUIOnTheBeach2024

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

A discussion I’m having right now: can a university in Sweden transfer completely de-identified cancer data to a US academic institution and keep a key in case of data questions? No, because of a theoretical privacy risk. Insane privacy regulations are killing cancer research.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

General advice to the academic community: make a choice between easy fame (dramatic findings!) vs doing hard work carefully and cautiously. Former is a nice dopamine hit and great for your career (though it shouldn't be). The latter is a pleasure you get to live with every day.

Will Fithian

@wfithian

4 years

I have been corresponding with the authors of the well-known Santa Clara County COVID-19 preprint, and I am alarmed at their sloppy behavior. The confidence interval calculation in their preprint made demonstrable math errors - *not* just questionable methodological choices.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

The data, including from randomized trials, are very clear that DRE is not of value as a screening test (though of use in work up of a man with elevated PSA). We can’t have clinical observations take priority over data.

Ashley Winter MD || Urologist

@AshleyGWinter

3 years

I continue to diagnose prostate cancer in men with normal PSA based on prostate exam alone. Please do prostate exams on men 55-70 who present for a physical. It's not a violation. It's a life saving, inexpensive test.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

Should you use confidence intervals and p-values for net benefit and decision curve analysis? (now with correct link!)

Decision curve analysis: confidence intervals and hypothesis testing for net benefit - Diagnostic...

Background A number of recent papers have proposed methods to calculate confidence intervals and p values for net benefit used in decision curve analysis. These papers are sparse on the rationale for...

diagnprognres.biomedcentral.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Can I say this any more clearly? The idea that >3 positive prostate biopsy cores or >50% in one core portends a dramatically worse prognosis was pulled out of the ether and is not based on empirical data.

Biopsy Core Features are Poor Predictors of Adverse Pathology in Men with Grade Group 1 Prostate...

There is little basis for excluding patients with otherwise low risk prostate cancer on biopsy from active surveillance based on criteria such as the number of positive cores or the maximum cancer...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Really, really baffled by the argument that we should call Gleason 6 "cancer" because biopsy might have missed Gleason 7. Is there any equivalent in medicine where we call a non-finding a finding just in case we missed the finding?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

When evaluating a prediction model: discrimination and calibration are for the analyst, to help improve a model; clinical utility (decision curve or other) is for the clinician, to help them decide whether to use the model.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

If this was a drug, it would be one of the greatest breakthroughs in oncology. Look at these survival curves! (Also zero marginal toxicity or cost)

Association Between Surgical Technical Skill and Long-term Survival for Colon Cancer

This cohort study examines the association between surgical technical skill and overall survival following colectomy for colon cancer.

jamanetwork.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

A real email from a predatory journal when I sent a joke response.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

So let’s get this right: send 1400 letters, do 300 genetic tests, biopsy 18 men and find 7 low risk cancers. A lot of work and cost with zero benefit and harm 7 men. How is this a success?

The BARCODE1 Pilot: a feasibility study of using germline single nucleotide polymorphisms to target...

The BARCODE1 Pilot has shown this community study in the UK to be feasible, with an overall uptake of 26%. The main BARCODE1 study is now open and will recruit 5000 men. The results of BARCODE1 will...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

If you want to know about prediction modeling, how about listening to someone who has been doing it for a bit? @f2harrell

Observations on Big Data, Precision Health, and Machine Learning

I have for some time been pessimistic about the yield to patients and to public health of the incredible amount of funding that has been put into high-dimensional data, electronic health record...

discourse.datamethods.org

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

10 months

In England, prostate cancer incidence strongly predictable by regional wealth R2=0.71 (data from , excludes London). NHS "informed choice" program on PSA is actually a "screen the wealthy" program.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Here we go again. Urology finds a new way of finding cancer (see PSA, MRI) then ignores “relevance of a finding depends on how you found it”. PSMA finds high prevalence of skeletal mets, even in men with low risk cancer. Likely huge overdiagnosis.

Staging 68 Ga-PSMA PET/CT in 963 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed prostate cancer:...

European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging - The aim of the study was to elaborate the incidence and type of skeletal involvement in a large cohort of patients with newly diagnosed...

link.springer.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Please please please look at the left hand side of this screen shot, not the right hand side.

Philipp Dahm

@EBMUrology

3 years

#ClinicalTrials Take-home messages by @VickersBiostats at #MCURe workshop @AmerUrological

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

@daviesbj We need less research, better research, research done for the right reason.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

9 months

I was always suspicious of the precision-recall curve. Now I know why

A Closer Look at AUROC and AUPRC under Class Imbalance

In machine learning (ML), a widespread adage is that the area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) is a superior metric for model comparison to the area under the receiver operating...

arxiv.org

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

We cannot research and address racial disparities in prostate cancer unless we understand the mechanisms behind racial differences in incidence and mortality. Published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology @BrandonMahal @seunogunwobi

Racism Does Not Cause Prostate Cancer, It Causes Prostate Cancer Death | Journal of Clinical...

ascopubs.org

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

@f2harrell . The news, by dichotomizers. Fewer than 100 die in a crash on I-95. The unemployment rate is above 10%. The president’s approval rating is less than 50%. In tonight’s game, both the Yankees & the Red Sox scored more than 4 runs. Tomorrow's temperature will be above 65.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

At #EAU23 and pretty stunned at the near complete failure of pretty much every speaker to present data, data and figures following what are, after all, the European Urology guidelines

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Trial shows effect size d, p=0.04. True effect size is indeed d. What is probability that exact replication (design, sample size, treatments) will have p<0.05? Actually ~30 – 50%, a result with interesting implications for the replication crisis.

How large should the next study be? Predictive power and sample size requirements for replication...

We use information derived from over 40K trials in the Cochrane Collaboration database of systematic reviews (CDSR) to compute the replication probability, or predictive power of an experiment given...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

10 months

Still 40% of patients with low risk prostate cancer getting treated. What a disaster.

European Urology

@EUplatinum

10 months

Uncovering the Changing Treatment Landscape for Low-risk Prostate Cancer in the USA from 2010 to 2020: Insights from the National Cancer Data Base @EdoardoBeatrici @mdlabban @DkFilipas @GLughezzani @NBuffi @adamkibel_uro @Putnam_Cole @qdtrinh

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

Metastatic prostate cancer lesions found by PSMA PET alone less aggressive than those found by bone scan. Why do we keep forgetting – PSA, MRI – that the aggressiveness of prostate tumors is not independent of how we find them?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Amazing how those who harp on about freedom have so little understanding of what freedom actually means. This couldn’t be any closer to “the freedom of your fist ends at the tip of my nose”. This nurse is in fact free not to get vaxxed. Just not free to endanger patients.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

I questioned the results of a high profile paper. Statistician sent me their code. It failed to follow any of the most basic principles of good coding practice. We’ve published on this: if you write code (and all statisticians do) do it properly!

Statistical Code for Clinical Research Papers in a High-Impact Specialist Medical Journal | Annals...

www.acpjournals.org

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

I caved. Must learn to be brief. @declangmurphy

Declan Murphy

@declangmurphy

9 years

Dr Vickers on why he's not on Twitter - "I can't communicate in less than 140 SENTENCES". Brilliant #usanz15 http://t.co/Y4MQ7abOQX

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

8 months

Pattern 3 prostate disease cannot metastasize to nodes (Ross et al 2012), or seminal vesicles. But, rarely, it penetrates the capsule. New evidence suggests that this is not biologically relevant: EPE in Gleaosn 6 doesn't raise BCR risk @uroegg

Risk of Biochemical Recurrence in Patients With Grade Group 1 Prostate Cancer With Extraprostatic...

Purpose:We sought to examine the association of extraprostatic extension (EPE) with biochemical recurrence (BCR) separately in men with Grade Group (GG) 1 and GG2 prostate cancer (PCa) treated with...

www.auajournals.org

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

Quick! Easy! How to be very scientific when you report your observational study! Just add the following to the Discussion section: "Correlation does not imply causation", "unmeasured confounding cannot be completely ruled out" and "further studies are warranted"

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Nearly 1500 patients randomized at a single center, basically no funding. It is possible to do large clinically-integrated trials at low cost.

Limited versus Extended Pelvic Lymph Node Dissection for Prostate Cancer: A Randomized Clinical...

This randomized clinical trial compared the difference in biochemical recurrence rate between limited and extended pelvic lymph node dissections in clinically localized prostate cancer. No signific...

euoncology.europeanurology.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

This might be tooting my own horn, but this really is a very good basic introduction to decision curve analysis.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

I once peer reviewed grants for a Canadian fund where PI got on a call with peer reviewers. I realized that I’d misunderstood a few things, but also got to explain to PI why I thought certain changes were needed. All very collaborative and civil. Why can’t NIH be like that?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

5 years

Spent >1 year trying to share data with European co-PI of NIH grant. Data sets fully anonymous, zero patient risk. Just told regulatory burden so high we should attempt novel informatics approaches to run analytic code remotely. Overzealous privacy regulation hurts patients.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

If you are submitting a paper to European Urology @EUplatinum (or any other urology journal for that matter) please follow the statistical guidelines. I really shouldn't have to start every statistical review saying "please follow the guidelines"!!

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Thought I’d tweet this out just in case it actually stops anyone unnecessarily categorizing a continuous predictor / exposure. ⁦ @f2harrell ⁩

Against quantiles: categorization of continuous variables in epidemiologic research, and its...

Background Quantiles are a staple of epidemiologic research: in contemporary epidemiologic practice, continuous variables are typically categorized into tertiles, quartiles and quintiles as a means...

bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

@f2harrell @mike__katta since year dot: "we should tell clinicians probability of disease." Response: "nah, too difficult, just give a yes / no". New study showing that "yes / no" leads to bad estimates and hence harmful medical practice.

Accuracy of Practitioner Estimates of Probability of Diagnosis Before and After Testing

This survey study of physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants explores practitioner understanding of diagnostic reasoning.

jamanetwork.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Did stats for observational study in informatics. Authors included thoughtful discussion of causality, concluding likely causal effect. Copy editor trashed it citing JAMA policy “causal language ... only for randomized trials”. Surely peer review/scientific not editorial issue?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

1) We shouldn’t be predicting prostate cancer risk, we should be predicting prostate cancer death. 2) PSA does that far better than any genetic test.

Charles Ryan

@charlesryanmd

3 years

FDA approves 23andMe HOXB13. Thoughts from @PCF_Science community? via @Verge

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Before you make a knee-jerk response "correlation doesn't imply causation: avoid causal conclusions from observational studies", remember this is what tobacco companies said for years. Be thoughtful about causal inference, don't abandon it @_MiguelHernan

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

7 months

NEJM has not one, but two studies on colorectal cancer screening that report only sensitivity and specificity of a new test. I have zero idea how to interpret the results: are they good tests or bad? #ClinicallyRelevantStatistics

A Cell-free DNA Blood-Based Test for Colorectal Cancer Screening | NEJM

Colorectal cancer is the third most diagnosed cancer in adults in the United States. Early detection could prevent more than 90% of colorectal cancer–related deaths, yet more than one third of the ...

www.nejm.org

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

We are hiring! If you are interesting in joining our extremely productive team, email or DM me. And do retweet.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

The rationale for removing the cancer designation from Gleason pattern 3 is 100% practical. What will happen if we continue to call pattern 3 cancer & what will happen if, instead, we use a label other than cancer? @uroegg @dr_coops

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

6 months

Very nice to see. Message to AI / ML folks: "Evaluating ... a model [means] estimating model discrimination (eg, c statistic), model calibration (eg, calibration plot, calibration slope), and clinical utility (eg, decision curve analysis)."

Gary Collins 🇪🇺

@GSCollins

6 months

NEW PAPER out today in @BMJ_latest TRIPOD+AI: reporting recommendations for studies developing or validating prediction models for use in healthcare that use #machinelearning methods #ArtificialIntelligence #AIstandards #OpenAccess Please share 🙏

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Anyone else tired of seeing cost effectiveness analyses / Markov models where the inputs are based on huge amounts of extrapolation / guesswork ("we assume that...") and then the authors reports QALY's to three decimal places (i.e. 8 hours) and costs to the nearest dollar?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Just saw *another* paper in which a sophisticated biomarker was dichotomized, you know, just because that is what we do right? So thought I'd tweet this paper which is pretty widely cited.

Against quantiles: categorization of continuous variables in epidemiologic research, and its...

Background Quantiles are a staple of epidemiologic research: in contemporary epidemiologic practice, continuous variables are typically categorized into tertiles, quartiles and quintiles as a means...

bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Why are we still reporting data in journals pretty much as Bradford Hill and Fisher did it? Why not take advantage of the interactive properties of web publishing?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

11 months

The problem with MRI-targeted biopsy is that grading and treatment guidelines stayed the same while the diagnostic pathway changed. More evidence that we need to update guidelines (or at least, follow the updated guidelines).

Magnetic resonance imaging targeted biopsy in biopsy‐naïve patients and the risk of overtreatment...

Objective To evaluate the impact of applying the 2014 and 2019 International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) recommendations on grade group distribution and concordance with radical prostate...

bjui-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

This is interesting, and perhaps pretty transformational. Evidence that what matters in prostate cancer is total amount of pattern 4. Ratio pattern 4 to pattern 3 (how we currently grade) not so helpful.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Lemma: the amount of work involved in conducting a statistical analysis of some investigator’s data set is independent of the scientific value of that analysis.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Some thoughts on Cohen’s d (standardized differences): if my boss gives me a $1000 pay rise, whether I should be pleased or not depends on the standard deviation of salaries at my hospital, right?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

Can I 100% clarify for the record: I don't advocate against MRI-targeted biopsies. My view is that MRI targeting PLUS current guidelines on pathology grading PLUS current guidelines on treatment causes overtreatment.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

On academic credit: the greatest satisfaction in an academic career is *not* getting credit for one of your ideas. It means your idea has been absorbed into the body of scientific knowledge.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

Well, sorta have to retweet this.

John Mandrola, MD

@drjohnm

3 years

Also — I read Andrew Vickers' “What is a p-value anyway? (In just 2 days) Review: It is INCREDIBLE. Format is 3 pages per chapter than 1-3 questions w/ answers. Not much math. Great stories Highest recommendation #BeImmuneToBeingBamboozled

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

@KeithKow I disagree with the letter. I don’t agree that “it shouldn’t have been published”. Publication makes clear in black and white that these attitudes are found amongst the leaders of our field.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

To make it 100% clear: data showing MRI-targeted prostate biopsy leads to overdiagnosis & overtreatment doesn’t mean MRI-imaging not useful for eg. avoiding biopsy. Likewise, pointing out the dangers of apricot pits is not to denigrate the health value of fruit.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Can we please stop citing p values of 2.55 x 10^-191? This is the probability of randomly selecting the correct atom in the universe, if every atom in the universe had another universe inside it.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

@JamesSurowiecki I’m sorry, but this is wrong. They did say “don’t go out and buy them” because they wanted to preserve them for medical professionals. They never said they don’t work. They said they do work on April 2

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

0.15 ng / ml / cc cut-off for PSA density came from the pre-MRI era and has never been justified using empirical data. We show that it is likely not the optimal threshold for biopsy in men with negative MRI.

Eur Urol Focus

@EurUrolFocus

1 year

Prostate-specific Antigen Density Cutoff of 0.15 ng/ml/cc to Propose Prostate Biopsies to Patients with Negative MRI: Efficient Threshold or Legacy of the Past

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

3 years

@f2harrell I usually make the argument that observational research was not discovered at Google in 2005, that epidemiologists and biostatisticians have been doing this stuff for quite a while and that, you know, there might be some lessons there.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

2 years

#StatsTwitter anyone noticed a huge double standard with respect to stats vs lab methods? Stats methods said to be "confusing" with request to "do something simpler" on papers where complex lab methods are inscrutable to anyone but a hard core expert in that narrow lab field?

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

1 year

Many papers recommend "shared decision-making" or "discuss with patient" where findings are not 100% unambiguous. I'm increasingly seeing this as a way to shirk responsibility because shared decision making etc. generally has not been evaluated in the scenario at hand.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 years

Pre-prints were developed as a way of doing better science - get some feedback, inspire new ideas, stimulate replication studies - before formal publication. Now they just seem to be a short-cut for media hungry scientists. So, please, @Richard_D_Riley , do stay old-fashioned.

Richard Riley (R²)

@Richard_D_Riley

4 years

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to be releasing press releases when submitting a pre-print. Dangerous even. Surely a paper needs to go through peer review first? Once a message is in the media and public domain, it’s very hard to turn back.

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Andrew Vickers

@VickersBiostats

4 months

A world in which John Ioannidis is giving a talk at a conference on Research Integrity is beyond satire.

GigaScience

@GigaScience

4 months

Brilliant starting disclaimer from John Ioannidis #WCRI2024 keynote that as someone who works on bias, he may have a lot of biases. Channeling his “why most published research is false” paper, he says his work should be scrutinized the same way

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