Snedecor Memorial Lecture

Marie Davidian
J. Stuart Hunter Distinguished Professor of Statistics
North Carolina State University (NCSU)

The Right Treatment for the Right Patient at the Right Time: Precision Medicine Through Treatment Regimes, SMARTs, and Statistics

Clinicians have long recognized that patients are different, and thus the best treatment decisions must take into account individual patient characteristics.  Precision medicine seeks to make clinical decision-making evidence-based, providing clinicians with principled decision support.  In the treatment of chronic diseases and disorders such as cancer or depression, a series of treatment decisions must be made at milestones and events in the disease/disorder process and in response to the evolving condition of the patient.  The goal is to make the best sequence of decisions leading to the most beneficial expected outcome for the patient.

An extensive body of statistical and other quantitative research exists on the development of data-based, optimal, tailored decision strategies (treatment regimes) and a clinical trial design suited to this purpose, the sequential, multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART).

This talk will provide an overview of how these methods work and provide a fundamental framework for precision medicine. Several ongoing studies will be discussed.

Refreshments at 3:45pm in Snedecor 2101.