Commentary: statistical analysis of 2 × 2 tables in biomarker studies 2) study design and statistical tests

Survival analysis is a cornerstone of medical research, used to evaluate the time until an event of interest occurs, such as death, disease recurrence, or recovery. Unlike standard statistical methods, survival analysis is particularly adept at handling censored data—instances where the event has not occurred for some participants by the end of the study or remains unobserved. To address these unique challenges, specialized techniques like the Kaplan-Meier estimator, log-rank test, and...

McNemar's Test is a nonparametric statistical test used to determine if there is a significant difference in proportions between two related groups when the outcome is binary (e.g., yes/no, success/failure). It is beneficial when we have paired data, such as pre-test/post-test designs, where the same subjects are measured under two different conditions. The test is named after the statistician Quinn McNemar, who introduced it in 1947. It is commonly used in situations where subjects are...

In statistics, the term independence means that one can directly obtain the probability of any event involving both variables by multiplying their individual probabilities. Tests of independence are chi-square tests involving the use of a contingency table of observed (data) values.
The test statistic for a test of independence is similar to that of a goodness-of-fit test:

In parametric statistics, two fundamental tests stand out for their utility and wide application: the Student's t-test and goodness-of-fit tests. These tests provide researchers with a robust method for drawing insights from data, testing hypotheses, and making informed decisions based on their findings.
The Student's t-test is a statistical test that examines if there is a statistically significant difference between the means of two groups. This test is instrumental when dealing with...

Biopharmaceutical studies constitute a vital field aiming to enhance drug delivery methods and refine therapeutic approaches, drawing upon diverse interdisciplinary knowledge. In research methodologies, the choice between controlled and non-controlled studies significantly influences the study's reliability and accuracy.
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...

Fisher's exact test is a statistical significance test widely used to analyze 2x2 contingency tables, particularly in situations where sample sizes are small. Unlike the chi-squared test, which approximates P-values and assumes minimum expected frequencies of at least five in each cell, Fisher's exact test calculates the exact probability (P-value) of observing the data or more extreme results under the null hypothesis. This feature makes it especially valuable when the assumptions of...