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    <IdentifierDoi>10.3205/25gmds067</IdentifierDoi>
    <IdentifierUrn>urn:nbn:de:0183-25gmds0670</IdentifierUrn>
    <ArticleType>Meeting Abstract</ArticleType>
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      <Title language="en">Combining machine learning methods for subgroup identification in time-to-event data with approximate Bayesian computation for bias correction</Title>
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        <PersonNames>
          <Lastname>Stahl</Lastname>
          <LastnameHeading>Stahl</LastnameHeading>
          <Firstname>Henrik</Firstname>
          <Initials>H</Initials>
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          <Affiliation>University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (h&#95;da), Darmstadt, Germany</Affiliation>
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          <Lastname>Klein</Lastname>
          <LastnameHeading>Klein</LastnameHeading>
          <Firstname>Lukas</Firstname>
          <Initials>L</Initials>
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        <Address>
          <Affiliation>University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (h&#95;da), Darmstadt, Germany</Affiliation>
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          <Lastname>Grieser</Lastname>
          <LastnameHeading>Grieser</LastnameHeading>
          <Firstname>Gunter</Firstname>
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          <Affiliation>University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (h&#95;da), Darmstadt, Germany</Affiliation>
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          <Lastname>Jahn</Lastname>
          <LastnameHeading>Jahn</LastnameHeading>
          <Firstname>Antje</Firstname>
          <Initials>A</Initials>
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        <Address>
          <Affiliation>University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (h&#95;da), Darmstadt, Germany</Affiliation>
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      <Creator>
        <PersonNames>
          <Lastname>G&#246;tte</Lastname>
          <LastnameHeading>G&#246;tte</LastnameHeading>
          <Firstname>Heiko</Firstname>
          <Initials>H</Initials>
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        <Address>
          <Affiliation>Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany</Affiliation>
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      <Publisher>
        <Corporation>
          <Corporatename>German Medical Science GMS Publishing House</Corporatename>
        </Corporation>
        <Address>D&#252;sseldorf</Address>
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    <SubjectGroup>
      <SubjectheadingDDB>610</SubjectheadingDDB>
      <Keyword language="en">subgroup identification</Keyword>
      <Keyword language="en">bias correction</Keyword>
      <Keyword language="en">ABC</Keyword>
      <Keyword language="en">machine learning</Keyword>
    </SubjectGroup>
    <DatePublishedList>
      <DatePublished>20251103</DatePublished>
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    <Language>engl</Language>
    <License license-type="open-access" xlink:href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
      <AltText language="en">This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.</AltText>
      <AltText language="de">Dieser Artikel ist ein Open-Access-Artikel und steht unter den Lizenzbedingungen der Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (Namensnennung).</AltText>
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      <Meeting>
        <MeetingId>M0631</MeetingId>
        <MeetingSequence>067</MeetingSequence>
        <MeetingCorporation>Deutsche Gesellschaft f&#252;r Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie</MeetingCorporation>
        <MeetingName>70. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft f&#252;r Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e. V. (GMDS)</MeetingName>
        <MeetingTitle></MeetingTitle>
        <MeetingSession>V: Machine learning and AI applications 1</MeetingSession>
        <MeetingCity>Jena</MeetingCity>
        <MeetingDate>
          <DateFrom>20250907</DateFrom>
          <DateTo>20250911</DateTo>
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    <ArticleNo>Abstr. 291</ArticleNo>
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      <MainHeadline>Text</MainHeadline><Pgraph>Personalized medicine is a crucial aspect in finding effective treatments for patients. In clinical development it is essential to identify subgroups of patients who exhibit a beneficial treatment effect, ideally before moving to confirmatory trials. The identified subgroups could be defined by predictive biomarkers with corresponding cut-off values. However, once biomarkers or corresponding cut-offs are selected in a data-driven manner a selection bias is introduced, i.e. the treatment effect within the selected subgroup is overestimated.</Pgraph><Pgraph>In previous work, the approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) algorithm was utilized to correct for this selection bias <TextLink reference="1"></TextLink>. This approach rather covers a reduced range of potential subgroups that are defined by cut-off values. Machine learning (ML)-based subgroup identification methods allow to cover much more potential subgroups with the downside of even greater bias and less interpretable subgroup definitions. Our goal is to extend the ABC algorithm to correct for selection bias also in these situations. Since our research is motivated by clinical trials in oncology, we will focus on time-to-event data such as overall survival or progression-free survival time.</Pgraph><Pgraph>ABC is a simulation approach that selects simulation runs where some particular statistic calculated from trial data at hand is similar to that calculated from simulated data where the true treatment effects are known. The true treatment effects from the selected simulation runs then define an approximation of their posterior distribution that is used for bias correction. Compared to <TextLink reference="1"></TextLink> ML methods raise additional questions that makes an extension not straight forward: The higher the complexity of the ML approach is the less comparable are the subgroup definitions between the simulation runs. Therefore, next to bias correction also &#8220;overlap with true subgroup&#8221;, &#8220;rate of correct biomarker inclusion&#8221; and &#8220;similarity in subgroup size&#8221; has to be assessed. Depending on the underlying goal of the ML algorithm there is also a higher or lower inherent tendency for bias and a methods potential for correcting that bias needs to be traded off against its potential to identify the &#8220;right&#8221; patients.</Pgraph><Pgraph>All those aspects are investigated in simulation studies based on the ADEMP framework. We start with two approaches: model-based partitioning (MOB) <TextLink reference="2"></TextLink>, <TextLink reference="3"></TextLink>, <TextLink reference="4"></TextLink> as an ML approach and use LASSO regression <TextLink reference="5"></TextLink> with treatment interactions as a comparator. In both approaches ABC is investigated for correcting selection bias.</Pgraph><Pgraph>The authors declare that they have no competing interests.</Pgraph><Pgraph>The authors declare that an ethics committee vote is not required.</Pgraph></TextBlock>
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        <RefAuthor>G&#246;tte H</RefAuthor>
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        <RefJournal>Biom J</RefJournal>
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      <Reference refNo="2">
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