A Validation of Methods for the Evaluation of Observational Studies of Screening Mammography: An Exploratory Analysis Based on Simulating Screening Cohorts

摘要

The degree of confidence one should place on non-randomised observational trials studies which estimate the benefit of screening depends on the validity of the analytic method employed. As is the case for all observational trials, screening evaluation studies are subject to bias. The objective of this study was to create a simulated data set and to compare four analytic methods in order to identify the method which was the least biased in terms of estimating the underlying hazard ratio.