Modeling the Clinical Effectiveness of Drugs Using the Beta Distribution (on the Example of Antibiotic Therapy of Acute Obstructive Bronchitis in Children)

Abstract

The aim of the study was to simulate the clinical efficacy of antibiotics used in the treatment of acute obstructive bronchitis in children with the use of beta distribution. Material and methods. Materials for the study are based on data of antibiotic therapy of patients hospitalized with acute obstructive bronchitis. The study included clinical records of 1604 patients. The age of the patients ranged from 0 to 18 years. The beta distribution was used to calculate the probability of the clinical outcome, it describes the probabilities for a binominal data array (the «sick-healthy» type) and was limited to an interval from 0 to 1. The parameters of the beta distribution are calculated based on the available experimental data. The probability of occurrence of clinical outcomes (recovery, absence of effect) was used as the input data in the model. Results. Curves for the beta distribution of the clinical efficacy of the analyzed antibiotics were constructed in the course of the study. The minimal and maximal clinical efficacy of the analyzed antibiotics (95% confidence interval) was determined. Conclusions. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that antibiotics-macrolides of the azithromycin group were the most effective from the clinical point of view for in patient treatment of children with acute obstructive bronchitis.

Keywords

• acute obstructive bronchitis
• children
• antibiotics
• clinical efficacy
• imitation modeling
• beta distribution
• minimal and maximal clinical efficacy