Hello. I have a population of 500 subjects with 100 cases of MGUS. I would calculate the rate of cases over population among age-class (e.g. 20-29, 30-39, 40-49 etc). My problem is that these cases have been gathered during a follow-up of 14 years. Should I divide population in age -class of 14 years? Thanks.
To avoid pitfalls you should ask and take the the advice of a professional statistician.
Not enough information to say. Details are needed. Failing the inclusion of details here, I agree with Josef. However, my sincere hope is that the statistician does not say, "Talk to me 14 years ago." They like to be involved in setting up the data collection. Fourteen years of data collection demonstrates a lot of perseverance. Be prepared to continue to persevere with the statistician, they can make one feel about 2 inches tall, and that is how they get people to actually listen to their advice, by putting their brains through a meat grinder. Which is how, BTW, one learns statistics, by having one's brain fed through a meat grinder.
Very nice, the image is quite realistic. Regarding my question , i would divide my population in age-class. I underline that it is a dynamic population.
I am considering to calculate the age of each subject from its last day of follow-up, in this way I have the real age of each one . It seems the best solution. too. Then I could calculate the age specific rate of disease ( subjects with disease over the population divided for range of age).
Yes, but the question is how to analyze the data. Without seeing it, and information about it, it is a tough call. Kaplan–Meier plot, perhaps?
Before this can be properly answered some key questions need answering:
(i) "how were the subjects selected?"
(ii) "was the diagnosis at the time of recruitment or at some later time point?" (it is not clear to me that "follow-up" means follow up time of individual patients or simply the time period over which you have recruited patients).
Hi John,
1) The population was selected on the basis of MGUS and divided in MGUS and non-MGUS patients.
2) diagnosis was made some later time point from recruitment.
This is the question! I have a dynamic retrospective cohort with diagnosis in different time point along a time span. How do I calculate partecipants' age on these occasions?
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