Personalized Statistical Medicine

Dr Abhaya Indrayan, MSc, MS, PhD (Ohio State), FAMS, FRSS, FSMS, FASc
Former Professor & Head of Biostatistics at Delhi University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi
Biostatistics Consultant at Max Healthcare, New Delhi
([email protected])
 
Medical biostatistics is the science of managing databased uncertainties in medicine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8281839/ – thus providing results with defined reliability and validity. Statistical Medicine is generally confused with medical biostatistics and is understood as the application of statistical methods to medical research. Both these are used at the group level where methods such as means, SDs, percentiles, odds ratios, correlations, regressions, and survival analysis play a dominant role.
We propose the use of statistical methods for diagnosis and prognosis at an individual level. These include indexes (BMI), scoring systems (APACHE), scales (Glasgow Come Scale), models (diagnostic and prognostic), decision trees incorporating nodes and branches, and now machine learning methods. All these can be used at the patient level in the clinics. Details available at https://journals.lww.com/ijmr/fulltext/2023/01000/personalized_statistical_medicine.17.aspx
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10284362/
These can give rise to a new medical specialty named Statistical Medicine on the lines of Nuclear Medicine, Academic Medicine, and Laboratory Medicine, where diagnosis and prognosis assessments are made by specific tools.