Date of Graduation
5-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering
Degree Level
Undergraduate
Department
Industrial Engineering
Advisor/Mentor
Zhang, Shengfan
Committee Member/Reader
Rossetti, Manuel D.
Abstract
Breast cancer overdiagnosis risk is difficult to estimate and varies significantly across current research. This research establishes a simulation approach to examine the relationship between breast cancer overdiagnosis and patient outcome and understand the impact that the range of breast cancer overdiagnosis rate estimates in the current literature has on patient outcomes. Overdiagnosis is represented in this study by a set of disease regression probabilities. Using microsimulation, we evaluate patient outcome, measured by number of mammograms and lifetime breast cancer mortality risk, as a function of treatment policy and regression probability. We use numerical experiments to evaluate treatment policies and disease regression probabilities, and we conclude through sensitivity analysis that treatment policy is a statistically significant factor for patient outcome and regression probability, or overdiagnosis rate, is only partially statistically significant for patient outcome.
Keywords
Breast cancer; overdiagnosis; simulation; microsimulation
Citation
Wagner, S. (2020). A Simulation Approach to Evaluate the Impact of Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis on Patient Outcomes. Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/ineguht/72
