𝔖 Bobbio Scriptorium
✦   LIBER   ✦

Unbiased estimation of odds ratios: combining genomewide association scans with replication studies

✍ Scribed by Jack Bowden; Frank Dudbridge


Book ID
102225229
Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Year
2009
Tongue
English
Weight
218 KB
Volume
33
Category
Article
ISSN
0741-0395

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis


Abstract

Odds ratios or other effect sizes estimated from genome scans are upwardly biased, because only the top‐ranking associations are reported, and moreover only if they reach a defined level of significance. No unbiased estimate exists based on data selected in this fashion, but replication studies are routinely performed that allow unbiased estimation of the effect sizes. Estimation based on replication data alone is inefficient in the sense that the initial scan could, in principle, contribute information on the effect size. We propose an unbiased estimator combining information from both the initial scan and the replication study, which is more efficient than that based just on the replication. Specifically, we adjust the standard combined estimate to allow for selection by rank and significance in the initial scan. Our approach explicitly allows for multiple associations arising from a scan, and is robust to mis‐specification of a significance threshold. We require replication data to be available but argue that, in most applications, estimates of effect sizes are only useful when associations have been replicated. We illustrate our approach on some recently completed scans and explore its efficiency by simulation. Genet. Epidemiol. 33:406–418, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.