The New England Journal of Statistics in Data Science logo


  • Help
Login Register

  1. Home
  2. Issues
  3. Volume 3, Issue 1 (2025)
  4. PDXpower: A Power Analysis Tool for Expe ...

The New England Journal of Statistics in Data Science

Submit your article Information Become a Peer-reviewer
  • Article info
  • Full article
  • More
    Article info Full article

PDXpower: A Power Analysis Tool for Experimental Design in Pre-clinical Xenograft Studies for Uncensored and Censored Outcomes
Volume 3, Issue 1 (2025), pp. 42–54
Shanpeng Li   Donatello Telesca   Harley I. Kornblum     All authors (8)

Authors

 
Placeholder
https://doi.org/10.51387/25-NEJSDS76
Pub. online: 5 February 2025      Type: Software Tutorial And/or Review      Open accessOpen Access
Area: Cancer Research

Accepted
24 January 2025
Published
5 February 2025

Abstract

In cancer research, leveraging patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) in pre-clinical experiments is a crucial approach for assessing innovative therapeutic strategies. Addressing the inherent variability in treatment response among and within individual PDX lines is essential. However, the current literature lacks a user-friendly statistical power analysis tool capable of concurrently determining the required number of PDX lines and animals per line per treatment group in this context. In this paper, we present a simulation-based R package for sample size determination, named ‘PDXpower’, which is publicly available at The Comprehensive R Archive Network (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=PDXpower). The package is designed to estimate the necessary number of both PDX lines and animals per line per treatment group for the design of a PDX experiment, whether for an uncensored outcome, or a censored time-to-event outcome. Our sample size considerations rely on two widely used analytical frameworks: the mixed effects ANOVA model for uncensored outcomes and Cox’s frailty model for censored data outcomes, which effectively account for both inter-PDX variability and intra-PDX correlation in treatment response. Step-by-step illustrations for utilizing the developed package are provided, catering to scenarios with or without preliminary data.

References

[1] 
Chang, W., Cheng, J., Allaire, J., Sievert, C., Schloerke, B., Xie, Y., Allen, J., McPherson, J., Dipert, A. and Borges, B. shiny: Web Application Framework for R. R package version 1.8.1.9000 (2024). https://github.com/rstudio/shiny
[2] 
Chen, L. M., Ibrahim, J. G. and Chu, H. Sample size determination in shared frailty models for multivariate time-to-event data. Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics 24(4) 908–923 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1080/10543406.2014.901346. MR3210438
[3] 
Dinart, D., Bellera, C. and Rondeau, V. Sample size estimation for recurrent event data using multifrailty and multilevel survival models. Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics, 1–16 (2024)
[4] 
Donohue, M. C. longpower: Power and sample size calculations for linear mixed models. R package version 1.0.23 (2021)
[5] 
Duchateau, L. and Janssen, P. The Frailty Model. Springer (2008). MR2723929
[6] 
Eckel-Passow, J. E., Kitange, G. J., Decker, P. A., Kosel, M. L., Burgenske, D. M., Oberg, A. L. and Sarkaria, J. N. Experimental design of preclinical experiments: number of PDX lines vs subsampling within PDX lines. Neuro-Oncology 23(12) 2066–2075 (2021)
[7] 
Green, P. and MacLeod, C. J. simr: an R package for power analysis of generalised linear mixed models by simulation. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 7(4) 493–498 (2016)
[8] 
Kleinman, K., Sakrejda, A., Moyer, J., Nugent, J. and Reich, N. clusterPower: Power calculations for cluster-randomized and cluster-randomized crossover trials. R package version 0.7.0 (2021)
[9] 
Kumle, L., Võ, M.L.-H. and Draschkow, D. Estimating power in (generalized) linear mixed models: an open introduction and tutorial in R. Behavior Research Methods 53(6) 2528–2543 (2021)
[10] 
Liu, G. and Liang, K. Y. Sample size calculations for studies with correlated observations. Biometrics 53(3) 937–47 (1997)
[11] 
Lu, K., Luo, X. and Chen, P.-Y. Sample size estimation for repeated measures analysis in randomized clinical trials with missing data. The International Journal of Biostatistics 4(1) 9 (2008). https://doi.org/10.2202/1557-4679.1098. MR2426114
[12] 
Martin, J. G., Nussey, D. H., Wilson, A. J. and Reale, D. Measuring individual differences in reaction norms in field and experimental studies: a power analysis of random regression models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 2(4) 362–374 (2011)
[13] 
PASS. PASS 2022 Power Analysis and Sample Size Software. NCSS, LLC. Kaysville, Utah, USA, ncss.com/software/pass (2022)
[14] 
R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria (2022)
[15] 
Rondeau, V., Marzroui, Y. and Gonzalez, J. R. frailtypack: an R package for the analysis of correlated survival data with frailty models using penalized likelihood estimation or parametrical estimation. Journal of Statistical Software 47 1–28 (2012)
[16] 
Rosner, B. Fundamentals of Biostatistics. Cengage learning (2015)
[17] 
SAS Institute Inc. The SAS Software, Version 9.4. Cary. http://www.sas.com/ (2013)

Full article PDF XML
Full article PDF XML

Copyright
© 2025 New England Statistical Society
by logo by logo
Open access article under the CC BY license.

Keywords
Frailty model Mixed effects ANOVA model Power analysis Sample size determination Xenograft study

Funding
This research was partially supported by National Institutes of Health (P50CA211015, P30 CA-16042, R01NS121319, P50 CA092131, and P01CA236585, GL, P30 CA-033572, JP), and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (UL1-TR-001420, GL).

Metrics
since December 2021
120

Article info
views

111

Full article
views

48

PDF
downloads

10

XML
downloads

Export citation

Copy and paste formatted citation
Placeholder

Download citation in file


Share


RSS

The New England Journal of Statistics in Data Science

  • ISSN: 2693-7166
  • Copyright © 2021 New England Statistical Society

About

  • About journal

For contributors

  • Submit
  • OA Policy
  • Become a Peer-reviewer
Powered by PubliMill  •  Privacy policy