Evaluation of Efficacy of Treatment with an Absorbing Markov Chain Model
Kiichi Hirosawa · Rinsho yakuri/Japanese Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics · 1973
In general, the efficacy of any medical treatment will be evaluated from the observation of the time course of symptoms which patients will present in response to the treatment.After employing an appropriate model of an absorbing Markov chain, these time series data can be submitted to a statistical analysis.In the model, a patient is represented as a stochastic system. Then the time process of the reactivity of the system to the treatment is examined in terms of its transition probability.In the present paper, the validity of the method in studying the transitional pattern of the state of patient was investigated in the case of treatment of purpura.The method with the model above mentioned proved to be of advantage in judging statistically the efficacy of the treatment.