Yufei Chen and Weiyun Zheng : Power analysis for the Zenker's diverticulum trial

Posted by , part of the Statistics and Data Science Seminar.

At

Feb. 28, 2008, 1 p.m.

In

SEO 712

Abstract

Zenker's diverticulum is a diagnosis that primarily affects individuals in the seventh and eighth decades. The current mainstay of treatment is surgical. Due to the advanced age of the population, many are not prime surgical candidates and have a higher probability of sequelae from general anesthetics. A newer method of delivery is injections that are given in clinic under EMG guidance. This allows patients who have comorbidities that make them poor surgical candidates the ability to receive treatments. To see the value of the botulium toxin injections, our study will look at the subjective symptomatic improvement noted by patients after receiving the injections. Patients who will receive botox injections in the clinic setting are asked to fill out a survey about their current status before the injections and the improvements they will notice after treatment in eating ability, normalcy of diet, and understandability of speech. With the distribution of patients populations to each category, we firstly use independent Z-test to get a rough total sample number with sufficient power. Second, we use advanced model with conditional probability transition matrix to simulate the whole process. The two results will be compared and the advantage of the later will be discussed.