Methods for Meta-Analysis in Medical Research (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics - Applied Probability and Statistics Section) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a survey of meta-analysis as applied to medical research. It covers fixed and random effects models, heterogeneity, publication bias, study quality and sensitivity analysis, and a number of more advanced topics, including Bayesian methods, problems with missing data, meta-analysis of other kinds of data, such as survival or observational data, and cumulative meta-analysis. The focus is on the statistical aspects of meta-analysis, not on how to conduct a literature search or code the sources, which are well documented elsewhere. The early part of the book is tutorial, and provides formulas for computing pooled effect sizes, and displays sample data sets in tables, along with corresponding graphical output. The latter part of the book discusses more advanced topics, but because of their inherent complexity, does not give complete details to allow reproducing the results. The mathematics is of moderate complexity. If you don't know about odds ratios, multivariate regression, and if notation such as y ~ N(0,1) leaves you puzzled, then this book is probably not for you. It makes only extremely brief use of linear algebra. It would be appropriate for quantitatively-inclined clinicians, or those learning about biostatistics and health services research. Although multi-authored, it has been edited for uniform style. It is quite readable, although there are a few annoying typos.

Negatives: the book was published in 2000, so it is not up-to-date, especially with respect to the capabilities of currently available software packages. The book's website no longer exists, so the claim that software code used in the examples is available to readers is a false one. This is a significant problem if you want to reproduce some of the Bayesian calculations, for example. Given these limitations, I feel it's not worth the $100+ price. A good book, but borrow it from the library.

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With meta-analysis methods playing a crucial role in health research in recent years, this important and clearly-written book provides a much-needed survey of the field.Meta-analysis provides a framework for combining the results of several clinical trials and drawing inferences about the effectiveness of medical treatments. The move towards evidence-based health care and practice is underpinned by the use of meta-analysis. This book:* Provides a thorough criticism and an up-to-date survey of meta-analysis methods* Emphasises the practical approach, and illustrates the methods by numerous examples* Describes the use of Bayesian methods in meta-analysis* Includes discussion of appropriate software for each analysis* Includes numerous references to more advanced treatment of specialist topics* Refers to software code used in the examples available on the authors' Web sitePractising statisticians, statistically-minded clinicians and health research professionals will benefit greatly from the clear presentation and numerous examples. Medical researchers will grasp the basic principles of meta-analysis, and learn how to apply the various methods.

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Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present Review

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(More customer reviews)The opening salvo was the press reporting on the so called Tuskegee experiments, in which black syphilitic men were studied but not treated. This book gives the most complete description of the Tuskegee experiments I've seen as it makes this study the centerpiece of medical experimentation where one race was selectied out as the subjects.
From there, unfortunagely, it goes on to show that this was not an abberation but a practice that goes back to slave days. It gives the stories of experiment after experiment that were conducted the same way with predominately black subjects.
The book concentrates on experiments conducted on black Americans and goes on to describe the ongoing, perhaps everlasting suspicion that these experiments have left in the minds of black America towards the medical profession.
This is a fitting subject for a book, but while reading I was reminded of the other famous medical experimentation incidents such as the German experiments in their concentration camps or those performed by Japan's Unit 516. It seems that 'unter-people' or people viewed as some kind of sub-human are the favorites for experiments.

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Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints, and Healing in the Modern World Review

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(More customer reviews)Twenty years before starting to write this book, Duffin, a hematologist, was "invited to read a set of bone marrow samples....The fourteen specimens were taken from one woman over an eighteen-month period" (p 3), a woman suffering from severe leukemia. Duffin assumed the patient had died, and that she had been asked to look over the samples for a lawsuit.
As it turned out, the patient was--and still is--very much alive. The samples were being studied by the Catholic church during the process of sainthood. Every person who was proposed for canonization had to have a required number of miracles before the process could continue. And the church needed to be sure it really was a miracle.
A good outcome was not enough for the church. Nor did a long remission count. Instead, the miracle needed to be spontaneous, and lasting. This process of canonization, which began in the 1500's, required medical doctors to agree that there was no possible scientific explanation for what had occurred.
Curious, Duffin visited the Vatican's archives and studied the miracles recorded over the past four centuries. The result of her research is this book, full of quirky facts about the miracles and the people and the doctors involved.
Take the case of Maria, who, in 1844, discovered a lump in her breast the size of a walnut."Every day it grew bigger, harder, and more painful (p 37). The doctors insisted on an instant surgery. But her priest told her about "the cause of Paolo della Croce...so for twenty days and nights, Maria prayed to the uncanonized Paolo" (p 37). On the night of Oct. 20th the lump vanished.
Some miracles are downright common, such as the incorruptibility "(preservation) or sweet odor of the corpse of a saint" (p 100). This miracle was "so frequent an occurrence ...that exhumation of the body of the would-be saint was part of the canonization process" (p 102).
Oddly, miracles that the saint performed before he died didn't count for the required number of miracles through his intercession after death. Having the stigmata may have been a sign of holiness; it had no effect on the canonization process.
Some doctors became defensive during the process, and some seemed to be left out of the loop, so that, ten years or more after seeing a patient, they are stunned to realize that same patient is still alive.
Surprise seems to be part of the process. "Just as the doctors' surprise is crucial...the patient's surprise at recovery also seems to be an important element...The devout do not presume" ( p 177).
Truly a fascinating book.

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Modern culture tends to separate medicine and miracles, but their histories are closely intertwined. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes saints through canonization based on evidence that they worked miracles, as signs of their proximity to God. Physicianhistorian Jacalyn Duffin has examined Vatican sources on 1400 miracles from six continents and spanning four centuries. Overwhelmingly the miracles cited in canonizations between 1588 and 1999 are healings, and the majority entail medical care and physician testimony. These remarkable records contain intimate stories of illness, prayer, and treatment, as told by people who rarely leave traces: peasants and illiterates, men and women, old and young. A woman's breast tumor melts away; a man's wounds knit; a lame girl suddenly walks; a dead baby revives. Suspicious of wishful thinking or naïve enthusiasm, skeptical clergy shaped the inquiries to identify recoveries that remain unexplained by the best doctors of the era. The tales of healing are supplemented with substantial testimony from these physicians. Some elements of the miracles change through time. Duffin shows that doctors increase in number; new technologies are embraced quickly; diagnoses shift with altered capabilities.But other aspects of the miracles are stable. The narratives follow a dramatic structure, shaped by the formal questions asked of each witness and by perennial reactions to illness and healing. In this history, medicine and religion emerge as parallel endeavors aimed at deriving meaningful signs from particular instances of human distress -- signs to explain, alleviate, and console in confrontation with suffering and mortality. A lively, sweeping analysis of a fascinating set of records, this book also poses an exciting methodological challenge to historians: miracle stories are a vital source not only on the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people, but also on medical science and its practitioners.

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The Secret of the Yellow Death: A True Story of Medical Sleuthing Review

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(More customer reviews)Just over one hundred years ago, a disease called yellow fever periodically ravaged cities in both the United States and Cuba. But despite the best efforts of doctors and scientists, no one had discovered the source of the devastating illness, or the cure. Determined to put a stop to the outbreaks and save future generations from harm, a team of army doctors set out for Cuba to face the disease head on.
Working with a Cuba physician, this team conducted experiments on human subjects, so devoted to their cause they included themselves in some. Even when the results suggested their best guesses were wrong, they pushed forward. One doctor eventually gave his life to the fever, but not before he'd started the rest of the team down the right path, to finally determine the cause of the illness and eliminate it.
THE SECRET OF THE YELLOW DEATH tells the story of those doctors in a straight-forward narrative style that will appeal even to readers who are not generally fond of non-fiction. The urgent need to understand the disease, and the risks the team and their volunteers take to gain that understanding, make the book at times as suspenseful as any work of fiction. Jurmain also clearly explains the scientific facts, and includes many photographs and illustrations to bring this time in history to life.
Recommended to anyone interested in science and medical mysteries.
Reviewed by: Lynn Crow

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Beyond Love Review

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(More customer reviews)I must have read this book 4-5 years ago. And it left such an impression that after all these years...I realise that I have to reread the book and write this review. For everyone who have read ths review, my advice is to read the book, I will not give away the suspense. But the interactions of the characters, the emotions protrayed and the reality of it all will definitely strike a chord in everybody's hearts. For once, I am so disappointed that the book is out of print, because, it should be shared by all readers young and old. It not only opens your mind, it makes you see things in a perspective you never knew existed.

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