ASA Connect

I recently have become involved in analyses involving food allergies. The issue is estimating a safe dose or threshold at a population level. Patients are given oral food challenges at specific doses that increase over the course of the test, letting some time lapse between doses to avoid most of the carryover effect. When they start to have any symptoms, usually slight, the test is stopped. The minimum eliciting dose can then be established for the individual.

The question is how this applies to a population. It is usually framed as the threshold dose such that only a small fraction of individuals in the population, say 1%, will experience a reaction. The eliciting dose or EDp is the dose of allergen that produces a response in p% of the allergic population. Much work has been done on this by food safety scientists such as Steve Taylor, Rene Crevel and others.

The statistical approach used is interesting. They use an interval-censored survival analysis where dose is the time variable. They estimate the proportion responding at each dose and fit survival models, such as the Weibull, to obtain a smooth distribution. The interval-censoring allows for different dosing across different individuals.

This seems to be a clever approach, but it seems unusual for a dose-response analysis. I haven’t seen it used in other fields. I’m just curious if anyone else has encountered this or has any other insight into the question.

I recently have become involved in analyses involving food allergies. The issue is estimating a safe dose or threshold at a population level. Patients are given oral food challenges at specific doses that increase over the course of the test, letting some time lapse between doses to avoid most of the carryover effect. When they start to have any symptoms, usually slight, the test is stopped. The minimum eliciting dose can then be established for the individual.

The question is how this applies to a population. It is usually framed as the threshold dose such that only a small fraction of individuals in the population, say 1%, will experience a reaction. The eliciting dose or EDp is the dose of allergen that produces a response in p% of the allergic population. Much work has been done on this by food safety scientists such as Steve Taylor, Rene Crevel and others.

The statistical approach used is interesting. They use an interval-censored survival analysis where dose is the time variable. They estimate the proportion responding at each dose and fit survival models, such as the Weibull, to obtain a smooth distribution. The interval-censoring allows for different dosing across different individuals.

This seems to be a clever approach, but it seems unusual for a dose-response analysis. I haven’t seen it used in other fields. I’m just curious if anyone else has encountered this or has any other insight into the question.

I recently have become involved in analyses involving food allergies. The issue is estimating a safe dose or threshold at a population level. Patients are given oral food challenges at specific doses that increase over the course of the test, letting some time lapse between doses to avoid most of the carryover effect. When they start to have any symptoms, usually slight, the test is stopped. The minimum eliciting dose can then be established for the individual.

The question is how this applies to a population. It is usually framed as the threshold dose such that only a small fraction of individuals in the population, say 1%, will experience a reaction. The eliciting dose or EDp is the dose of allergen that produces a response in p% of the allergic population. Much work has been done on this by food safety scientists such as Steve Taylor, Rene Crevel and others.

The statistical approach used is interesting. They use an interval-censored survival analysis where dose is the time variable. They estimate the proportion responding at each dose and fit survival models, such as the Weibull, to obtain a smooth distribution. The interval-censoring allows for different dosing across different individuals.

This seems to be a clever approach, but it seems unusual for a dose-response analysis. I haven’t seen it used in other fields. I’m just curious if anyone else has encountered this or has any other insight into the question.

I recently have become involved in analyses involving food allergies. The issue is estimating a safe dose or threshold at a population level. Patients are given oral food challenges at specific doses that increase over the course of the test, letting some time lapse between doses to avoid most of the carryover effect. When they start to have any symptoms, usually slight, the test is stopped. The minimum eliciting dose can then be established for the individual.

The question is how this applies to a population. It is usually framed as the threshold dose such that only a small fraction of individuals in the population, say 1%, will experience a reaction. The eliciting dose or EDp is the dose of allergen that produces a response in p% of the allergic population. Much work has been done on this by food safety scientists such as Steve Taylor, Rene Crevel and others.

The statistical approach used is interesting. They use an interval-censored survival analysis where dose is the time variable. They estimate the proportion responding at each dose and fit survival models, such as the Weibull, to obtain a smooth distribution. The interval-censoring allows for different dosing across different individuals.

This seems to be a clever approach, but it seems unusual for a dose-response analysis. I haven’t seen it used in other fields. I’m just curious if anyone else has encountered this or has any other insight into the question.