Clinical Trials: Spline Modeling is Wonderful for Nonlinear Effects

Traditionally, nonlinear relationships like the smooth shapes of airplanes, boats, and motor cars were constructed from scale models using stretched thin wooden strips, otherwise called splines. In the past decades, mechanical spline methods have been replaced with their mathematical counterparts. The objective of the study was to study whether spline modeling can adequately assess the relationships between exposure and outcome variables in a clinical trial and also to study whether it can detect patterns in a trial that are relevant but go unobserved with simpler regression models. A clinical trial assessing the effect of quantity of care on quality of care was used as an example. Spline curves consistent of 4 or 5 cubic functions were applied. SPSS statistical software was used for analysis. The spline curves of our data outperformed the traditional curves because (1) unlike the traditional curves, they did not miss the top quality of care given in either subgroup, (2) unlike the traditional curves, they, rightly, did not produce sinusoidal patterns, and (3) unlike the traditional curves, they provided a virtually 100% match of the original values. We conclude that (1) spline modeling can adequately assess the relationships between exposure and outcome variables in a clinical trial; (2) spline modeling can detect patterns in a trial that are relevant but may go unobserved with simpler regression models; (3) in clinical research, spline modeling has great potential given the presence of many nonlinear effects in this field of research and given its sophisticated mathematical refinement to fit any nonlinear effect in the mostly accurate way; and (4) spline modeling should enable to improve making predictions from clinical research for the benefit of health decisions and health care. We hope that this brief introduction to spline modeling will stimulate clinical investigators to start using this wonderful method.