Review
Medicine, General & Internal
Kangle Guo, Jingwen Li, Jieyun Li, Nan Chen, Yanfei Li, Kehu Yang, Xiuxia Li
Summary: This study analyzed nine RCTs and found that Varenicline may help promote smoking cessation in people with alcohol dependence, while Naltrexone, Topiramate, and Bupropion did not show clear effects on smoking abstinence in this population. Due to the small number of studies and low certainty of evidence, the results should be interpreted cautiously.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PRACTICE
(2021)
Article
Substance Abuse
Emily E. Hartwell, Richard Feinn, Katie Witkiewitz, Timothy Pond, Henry R. Kranzler
Summary: Although continuous measures of drinking and alcohol-related problems yielded larger effect sizes than the WHO RDLs, the latter nonetheless provide a categorical alternative for use in both clinical care and pharmacotherapy trials.
ALCOHOLISM-CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Substance Abuse
Corey R. Roos, Krysten W. Bold, Katie Witkiewitz, Robert F. Leeman, Kelly S. DeMartini, Lisa M. Fucito, William R. Corbin, Karl Mann, Henry R. Kranzler, Stephanie S. O'Malley
Summary: This study identified three profiles of young adult drinkers: Low reward/Low relief, Reward drinkers, and High reward/High relief. Naltrexone significantly reduced risky drinking among reward drinkers and high reward/high relief drinkers, but through different mechanisms.
Article
Substance Abuse
Victoria R. Votaw, Karl Mann, Henry R. Kranzler, Corey R. Roos, Helmut Nakovics, Katie Witkiewitz
Summary: This study aimed to refine a measure of reward/relief drinking and develop cutoff scores to predict pharmacotherapy response. The results showed that individuals with a high reward/low relief phenotype had a decreased likelihood of heavy drinking when receiving naltrexone or acamprosate treatment.
DRUG AND ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE
(2022)
Article
Substance Abuse
Jack T. Waddell, William R. Corbin, David P. MacKinnon, Robert F. Leeman, Kelly S. DeMartini, Lisa M. Fucito, Henry R. Kranzler, Stephanie S. O'Malley
Summary: Objective Naltrexone is effective in treating heavy drinking among young adults. However, few studies have examined its effects on subjective response and craving in natural drinking environments. This study used daily diary data to analyze the effects of treatment condition (naltrexone vs. placebo) and medication dosage on subjective response and craving. The results show that naltrexone reduces intense subjective effects and craving, with medication dosage affecting within-person effects. The study suggests that future research can confirm and expand these findings using momentary assessments.
ALCOHOL-CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Substance Abuse
Erica N. Grodin, Elizabeth M. Burnette, ReJoyce Green, Aaron C. Lim, Karen Miotto, Lara A. Ray
Summary: The combined therapy of varenicline and naltrexone shows better efficacy in attenuating alcohol cue-elicited neural activation and reducing alcohol craving compared to varenicline alone. This study provides preliminary proof-of-mechanism for the combination pharmacotherapy.
DRUG AND ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE
(2021)
Article
Substance Abuse
Henry R. Kranzler, Emily E. Hartwell, Richard Feinn, Timothy Pond, Katie Witkiewitz, Joel Gelernter, Richard C. Crist
Summary: Combining the findings of two studies, it was found that topiramate has a significant effect on reducing heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems, but the rs2832407 genotype does not moderate its therapeutic effects.
DRUG AND ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE
(2021)
Article
Oncology
Miranda B. Lam, Kristen E. Riley, Jie Zheng, E. John Orav, Ashish K. Jha, Laura G. Burke
Summary: The study explored the use of Healthy Days at Home (HDAH) as a potential measure for cancer patients at the end of life. Results showed that on average, patients had 154.0 HDAH, with males, Medicaid-eligible patients, and patients with hematologic malignancies having fewer adjusted HDAH days.
Article
Neurosciences
James C. Garbutt, Alexei B. Kampov-Polevoy, Cort Pedersen, Melissa Stansbury, Robyn Jordan, Laura Willing, Robert J. Gallop
Summary: The study found that baclofen has efficacy in treating AUD, with dose and sex potentially influencing its effectiveness and tolerability.
NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Eric Pedersen, Jordan P. Davis, Claude Setodji, Emily R. Dworkin, Isabel Leamon, Justin F. Hummer, Rushil Zutshi, John D. Clapp
Summary: College students who engage in pregaming before drinking are at higher risk for experiencing sexual violence victimization.
JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION MALTREATMENT & TRAUMA
(2022)
Article
Substance Abuse
Verena E. Metz, Vanessa A. Palzes, Andrea H. Kline-Simon, Felicia W. Chi, Constance M. Weisner, Stacy A. Sterling
Summary: The study found that having five or more heavy drinking days in a 3-month period may indicate an increased risk of developing severe alcohol use disorder in an adult primary care population.
Article
Psychiatry
Andrea King, Ashley Vena, Deborah S. Hasin, Harriet DeWit, Sean J. O'Connor, Dingcai Cao
Summary: This study conducted a 10-year longitudinal examination on the acute subjective responses to alcohol, finding that initial stimulant and rewarding effects of alcohol predicted heavy alcohol use, with the magnitude of these positive subjective effects increasing over time in individuals who developed AUD.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY
(2021)
Article
Substance Abuse
Steven J. J. Nieto, Craig K. K. Enders, Katie Witkiewitz, Stephanie S. S. O'Malley, Lara A. A. Ray
Summary: This study aimed to test the effectiveness of combined varenicline and naltrexone treatment in reducing continuous drinking and drinking risk. The results of the study showed that the combination treatment had a positive effect on individuals who smoke daily and drink heavily, helping to reduce drinking risk levels.
ALCOHOLISM-CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Substance Abuse
John D. Roache, Martina Pavlicova, Aimee Campbell, Tse-Hwei Choo, Michelle Peavy, Andrea S. Kermack, Edward V. Nunes, John Rotrosen
Summary: The study compared the effectiveness of extended-release naltrexone and buprenorphine-naloxone in reducing drinking in patients with opioid use disorder, finding both medications to be equally effective. However, the study was limited by low levels of comorbid alcohol use disorder or heavy drinking observed in the participants.
ALCOHOLISM-CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Substance Abuse
Aleksei Baburin, Rainer Reile, Tatjana Veideman, Mall Leinsalu
Summary: In Estonia, alcohol consumption peaks among individuals aged 20-29 years, then decreases with age, while total alcohol consumption and consumption of different types of beverages have significantly increased since the 1990s for both men and women. Men born in the 1990-2000s have significantly lower daily consumption compared to earlier cohorts, whereas the opposite is found for women.
ALCOHOL AND ALCOHOLISM
(2021)
Article
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Jingxia Liu, Chengjie Xiong, Lei Liu, Guoqiao Wang, Luo Jingqin, Feng Gao, Ling Chen, Yan Li
Summary: This study investigates the impact of equal versus unequal cluster sizes on treatment effects in cluster randomized trials, suggesting that increasing the number of clusters can compensate for efficiency loss due to different cluster sizes.
JOURNAL OF BIOPHARMACEUTICAL STATISTICS
(2021)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Fangfang Wang, Lu Lin, Lei Liu, Kangning Wang
Summary: The paper aims to estimate the homogeneous parameter and cluster the heterogeneous parameters in a partially heterogeneous single index model. By introducing an empirical version and fusion penalized method, the homogeneous parameter and heterogeneous index directions were consistently estimated, and the heterogeneous parameters were consistently clustered. The new clustering procedure is simple and robust, as demonstrated in simulation studies.
STATISTICAL PAPERS
(2021)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Haixiang Zhang, Jun Chen, Yang Feng, Chan Wang, Huilin Li, Lei Liu
Summary: The microbiome plays a crucial role in human health and requires special methods for analysis of high-dimensional data. This research proposes a procedure using log-ratio transformation to select significant mediator variables, and the effectiveness of the method is verified through simulations.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2021)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Lili Liu, Mae Gordon, J. Philip Miller, Michael Kass, Lu Lin, Shujie Ma, Lei Liu
Summary: This article focuses on capturing heterogeneity in clustered or longitudinal data. A fused effects model is proposed, which assumes an unknown number of distinct levels of heterogeneity and uses a fusion penalty approach for estimation and inference. The performance of this method is evaluated and compared to traditional fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) models through simulation studies.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2021)
Article
Biology
Cheng Zheng, Lei Liu
Summary: This study proposes a causal mediation analysis method to compute the direct and indirect effects of longitudinal biomarkers on survival endpoints. The joint modeling approach relaxes the commonly used sequential ignorability assumption, and two case studies demonstrate the application of the method in evaluating biomarkers.
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Haixiang Zhang, Yinan Zheng, Lifang Hou, Cheng Zheng, Lei Liu
Summary: In this study, a novel method is introduced to identify potential mediators in high-dimensional Cox regression, with successful control of false discovery rate through data dimension reduction and multiple-testing procedure. Application to DNA methylation markers in lung cancer patients reveals two potential mediating epigenetic markers.
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Yong He, Qiushi Li, Qinqin Hu, Lei Liu
Summary: This article addresses the transfer learning problem in estimating undirected semiparametric graphical model and proposes a new algorithm Trans-Copula-CLIME, which relaxes the Gaussian distribution assumption and utilizes nonparametric rank-based correlation coefficient estimators for robustness against normality. The results show that Trans-Copula-CLIME performs better when data are not from Gaussian distribution.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2022)
Article
Biology
Dong Liu, Changwei Zhao, Yong He, Lei Liu, Ying Guo, Xinsheng Zhang
Summary: This paper proposes a method for clustering and estimating heterogeneous graphs in fMRI data, achieving good results by fully exploiting the group differences of conditional dependence relationships among brain regions. The method constructs individual-level between-region network measures and uses a modified difference of convex programming with the alternating direction method of multipliers (DC-ADMM) algorithm to solve the optimization problem.
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Xiaogang Su, Youngjoo Cho, Liqiang Ni, Lei Liu, Elise Dusseldorp
Summary: Moderation analysis is crucial in precision medicine research. By exchanging the roles of outcome and treatment variable, equivalent estimation of heterogeneous treatment effects can be achieved in logistic regression models. This study establishes the joint asymptotic normality for the two estimators, enabling refined inference in moderation analysis.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2023)
Review
Health Care Sciences & Services
Jingxia Liu, Lei Liu, Aimee S. James, Graham A. Colditz
Summary: Cluster randomized trial design is expensive and it is important to develop an optimal design to minimize costs. Local optimal designs aim to minimize the variance of the treatment effect under a fixed budget. This requires the input of an association parameter and involves the consideration of enrollment feasibility. Our contributions include summarizing available local optimal designs and proposing new designs for different scenarios, as well as developing Statistical Analysis System (SAS) macros for all optimal designs.
STATISTICAL METHODS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Lili Liu, Kevin He, Di Wang, Shujie Ma, Annie Qu, Lu Lin, J. Philip Miller, Lei Liu
Summary: There is a growing research interest in evaluating the performance of healthcare centers based on patient outcomes. Conventional assessments can be done using fixed or random effects models, like provider profiling. A new method is proposed using fusion penalty to cluster healthcare centers based on survival outcomes, providing a data-driven approach for grouping without prior knowledge. An efficient algorithm is developed to implement the proposed method, and its validity is demonstrated through simulation studies and application to kidney transplant registry data.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Yiming Shi, Huilin Li, Chan Wang, Jun Chen, Hongmei Jiang, Ya-Chen T. Shih, Haixiang Zhang, Yizhe Song, Yang Feng, Lei Liu
Summary: In this article, a flexible model for microbiome count data is proposed. The model is based on a quasi-likelihood framework, which does not assume any specific distribution for the microbiome count but assumes the variance as an unknown but smooth function of the mean. Simulation studies demonstrate that the flexible quasi-likelihood method provides valid inferential results compared to the negative binomial generalized linear model (GLM) and Poisson GLM. The utility of the method is further demonstrated using a real microbiome study on the relationship between adenomas and microbiota. An R package, fql, is provided for applying the method.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Fang Niu, Cheng Zheng, Lei Liu
Summary: Recurrent events and terminal events are often related in biomedical studies. Although joint models have been proposed to analyze their correlation, there is a lack of suitable methods to investigate the causal mechanisms between specific exposures, recurrent events, and terminal events.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Haixiang Zhang, Jun Chen, Zhigang Li, Lei Liu
Summary: This paper investigates the mediation mechanism of microbiome in mediation analysis, using the isometric logratio transformation of relative abundance as a mediator variable. A de-biased Lasso estimate is proposed for the mediator of interest, along with its standard error estimator for developing a test procedure on the mediation effect. Extensive simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the performance of the method, which is applied to test the mediation effect of human gut microbiome between dietary fiber intake and body mass index.
STATISTICS IN BIOSCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Lulu Zuo, Haixiang Zhang, HaiYing Wang, Lei Liu
Summary: A subsampling algorithm is proposed for massive survival data to approximate regression parameter estimates efficiently in an additive hazards model. The subsample-based method significantly reduces computational costs while maintaining low bias and satisfactory coverage probabilities in numerical simulations. An example on survival analysis of lymphoma cancer patients is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the method.
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
(2021)