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ROC curve and covariates: extending induced methodology to the non-parametric framework

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Abstract

Continuous diagnostic tests are often used to discriminate between diseased and healthy populations. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is a widely used tool that provides a graphical visualisation of the effectiveness of such tests. The potential performance of the tests in terms of distinguishing diseased from healthy people may be strongly influenced by covariates, and a variety of regression methods for adjusting ROC curves has been developed. Until now, these methodologies have assumed that covariate effects have parametric forms, but in this paper we extend the induced methodology by allowing for arbitrary non-parametric effects of a continuous covariate. To this end, local polynomial kernel smoothers are used in the estimation procedure. Our method allows for covariate effect not only on the mean, but also on the variance of the diagnostic test. We also present a bootstrap-based method for testing for a significant covariate effect on the ROC curve. To illustrate the method, endocrine data were analysed with the aim of assessing the performance of anthropometry for predicting clusters of cardiovascular risk factors in an adult population in Galicia (NW Spain), duly adjusted for age. The proposed methodology has proved useful for providing age-specific thresholds for anthropometric measures in the Galician community.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit of Biostatistics, Dept. of Statistics and Operations Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    María Xosé Rodríguez-Álvarez & Carmen Cadarso-Suárez

  2. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Santiago (IDIS), Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    María Xosé Rodríguez-Álvarez & Carmen Cadarso-Suárez

  3. Dept. of Statistics and Operational Research, University of Vigo, c/Torrecedeira 86, 36208, Vigo, Spain

    Javier Roca-Pardiñas

Authors
  1. María Xosé Rodríguez-Álvarez
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  2. Javier Roca-Pardiñas
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  3. Carmen Cadarso-Suárez
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Correspondence to María Xosé Rodríguez-Álvarez.

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Rodríguez-Álvarez, M.X., Roca-Pardiñas, J. & Cadarso-Suárez, C. ROC curve and covariates: extending induced methodology to the non-parametric framework. Stat Comput 21, 483–499 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11222-010-9184-1

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