Survivor bias and risk assessment.

Survivor treatment selection bias and outcomes research: a case study of surgery in infective endocarditis.

BACKGROUND Recent studies in infective endocarditis have suggested an association between surgery and reduced mortality. However, these studies did not account for survivor treatment selection bias, which is an underrecognized source of error in observational studies. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the effects of survivor bias on surgical outcomes in infective endocarditis. METHODS AND RESU...

Evidence supporting radiation hormesis in atomic bomb survivor cancer mortality data.

A recent update on the atomic bomb survivor cancer mortality data has concluded that excess relative risk (ERR) for solid cancers increases linearly with dose and that zero dose is the best estimate for the threshold, apparently validating the present use of the linear no threshold (LNT) model for estimating the cancer risk from low dose radiation. A major flaw in the standard ERR formalism for...

Prevalence of survivor bias in observational studies on fresh frozen plasma:erythrocyte ratios in trauma requiring massive transfusion.

Observational studies on transfusion in trauma comparing high versus low plasma:erythrocyte ratio were prone to survivor bias because plasma administration typically started later than erythrocytes. Therefore, early deaths were categorized in the low plasma:erythrocyte group, whereas early survivors had a higher chance of receiving a higher ratio. When early deaths were excluded, however, a bia...

Incident Ischemic Heart Disease After Long-Term Occupational Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter: Accounting for 2 Forms of Survivor Bias

Little is known about the heart disease risks associated with occupational, rather than traffic-related, exposure to particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 µm or less (PM2.5). We examined long-term exposure to PM2.5 in cohorts of aluminum smelters and fabrication workers in the United States who were followed for incident ischemic heart disease from 1998 to 2012, and we addressed 2...

Risk management: is your ASC vulnerable?