Bias in association studies resulting from gene-environment interactions and competing risks
Bias in association studies resulting from gene-environment interactions and competing risks
复制标题
DOI：
10.1093/aje/155.3.265
复制
发表时间：
2002-02-01
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Alpérovitch, A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Elbaz, A;Alpérovitch, A
多因素迟发性疾病的病因学，特别是遗传基础，是许多遗传流行病学研究的主题。作者在这篇论文中的目的是调查竞争风险可能导致迟发性疾病遗传易感性研究中的偏差的情况。作者使用了一个建立在流行病学框架中的模型，以表明当遗传风险因素和环境风险因素相互作用导致频繁的竞争死亡风险时，如果环境风险因素也与后一种疾病相关，则对正在调查的疾病和遗传风险因素之间的关联的衡量将是有偏见的，并被从分析中省略。这是混淆偏见的一个例子，它是随着时间的推移出现的遗传风险因素和环境风险因素之间的关联的结果。数值例子表明，在某些条件下，这种偏差可能是很大的。作者提出了几种支持这种偏见的联想模式。由于老年受试者可能存在相互竞争的死亡风险，研究晚发性疾病病因学的研究人员应该意识到这种偏见的可能性。
The etiology, particularly the genetic basis, of multifactorial late-onset diseases is the subject of many genetic epidemiologic studies. The authors' aim in this paper was to investigate the circumstances under which competing risks can lead to bias in studies of genetic susceptibility to late-onset diseases. The authors used a model built in an epidemiologic framework to show that when a genetic risk factor and an environmental risk factor interact to cause a frequent competing risk of death, the measure of the association between the disease under investigation and the genetic risk factor will be biased if the environmental risk factor is also associated with the latter disease and is omitted from the analysis. This is an example of confounding bias, and it is the consequence of an association between the genetic risk factor and the environmental risk factor that appears over time. Numerical examples show that under certain conditions this bias can be substantial. The authors present several patterns of association in favor of such a bias. Because competing risks of death are likely to be present in older subjects, researchers studying the etiology of late-onset diseases should be aware of the possibility of this bias.