Hazard Ratio

Drug studies are very useful in determining the effectiveness of a given drug for a particular treatment. When used in a survival analysis, hazard ratio can be defined as the ratio of the rates of the risk that match the conditions presented by the two explanatory variables in the study. The concept presented here, therefore, means that in the study, there must be the experimental and the control group. In the study that involved vemurafenib and dacarbazine as the test drugs, it was found that 95% CI represented a relative reduction in risk of death of 63% when the hazard ratio for death was between 0.26-0.55. In this study, it suggests that the use of Vemurafenib in the selected patients for the study was efficient and increased the survival rate of the patients thereby reducing the probability of death. On the other hand, the finding that suggested a 95% CI for relative reduction in risk of death or progression to 74% for a hazard ratio of 0.20-0.33 could mean that the use of Vemurafenib on patients increased the chances of the development and the progression of the cancer tumor.

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Figure 1 of the Vemurafenib article has been divided into panel A and B. The column on the left, in panel B shows the ranges at which the drug administered was active in the subgroups. The patients in the subgroups exhibited different characteristics and response to the drug administered and, therefore, had ranges at which the doses of the drug was effective beyond which the detrimental side effects would occur. Within the figure, there is a vertical line that marks the hazard ratio of 1.0. It is critical to note this point since it indicates the point at which values below it mark significant hazard ratios while the values that cross the point are considered to be insignificant and do not have any distinct advantage for the group studied.

Table 3 of the article on ZELBORAF shows a similarity to the progressive-free survival and a difference in the overall survival in figure 1 of the Vemurafenib article. The reason that can be attributed to this scenario is that the progressive data represent the values inclusive of all the patients in the study until the next significant event occurs. It being that some patients withdrew from the study allow for the difference in the mean calculated and recorded in the results of the overall survival treatment. The difference that can be deduced from figure 1 of the FDA article and the results in figure 1 of the Vemurafenib article is that figure 1 of the latter contains the censored data of the patients who forfeited and figured 1 of the former has not indicated such with the values higher.

Figure 2 of the Avastin article represent the different responses exhibited by the Placebo or the control group and the experimental group in the study conducted. With the introduction of the drug, both the control and the experimental group had responses that exhibited no significant differences but with time, the control group had a constant reaction while the experimental registered a negative response. In the article, the hazard ratio for death is 1.13 with a 95% CI, 0.93-1.37 while the hazard ratio for PFS is 0.79 with a 95% CI, and 0.66-0.94. The median time to death of Vemurafenib is 15.7 months with a 95% CI of 14.2-16.8 while the median time to death for the placebo group is 16.1 months (95% CI, 14.8-18.7). The median time to PFS for Vemurafenib group is 10.7 months (95% CI, 10.0-12.2) and the median time to PFS for placebo group is 7.3 months (95% CI, 5.9-7.9).