Improving patient classification and biomarker assessment using Gaussian Mixture Models and Bayes' rule.

Abstract

In clinical research, determining cutoff values for continuous variables in test results remains challenging, particularly when considering candidate biomarkers or therapeutic targets for disease. Distribution of a continuous variable into two populations is known as dichotomization and has been commonly used in clinical studies. We recently reported a new method for determining multiple cutoffs for continuous variables. The development of this original approach was based on fitting Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) onto real-world clinical data. We also explored how to leverage Bayesian probability to minimize uncertainty while classifying individual patients into respective subpopulations. In addition, we investigated the performance of the proposed method for the distribution of classical prognostic markers in breast cancer. Finally, we applied the proposed method to analyze a candidate marker and a target for cancer therapy. Here, we present an overview of this method and our prospects for its implementation in biomedical and clinical research.