Iranian Journal of

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Background and Objectives: Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women which accounts for the highest number of deaths after lung cancer. The aim of the current study was to compare the logistic regression and classification tree models in determining the risk factors and prediction of breast cancer.

Methods: We used from the data of a case-control study conducted on 303 patients with breast cancer and 303 controls. In the first step, we included 16 potential risk factors of breast cancer in both the logistic regression and classification tree models. Then, the area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity indexes were used for comparing these models.

Results: From 16 variables included in the models, 5 variables were statistically significant in both models. Sensitivity, specificity, and AUC was 71%, 69%, and 74.7% for the logistic regression and 63.3%, 68.8%, and 71.1% for the classification tree, respectively.

Conclusion: The obtained results suggest that the classification tree has more power for separating patients from healthy people. Menopausal status, number of breast cancer cases in the family, and maternal age at the first live birth were significant indicators in both models.

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Background and Objectives: Tuberculosis is the most common cause of death among single-factor infectious diseases and is the tenth cause of death among all diseases in the world. The disease is spread mainly from an infected person through close contact with other people living in one place. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the spatial correlation structure and the recovery time of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in Iran.
Methods: In this applied study, the data of 20554 patients with sputum smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis in Iran from 1389 to 1393 were used. A parametric accelerated failure time model with spatial frailty and batesian approach was used to analyze the data. The OpenBUGS 1.4 was used for programming and the ArcGIS 9.2 was used for mapping the environmental impact on tuberculosis.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 50.35 years with a standard deviation of 21.6 years. The results showed that the geographical environment, gender, prison condition, degree of smear positivity at diagnosis and location (urban-rural) had a significant impact on the recovery time of pulmonary tuberculosis patients. The recovery time of patients with smear grade 1-9 bacilli, 1+ and 2+ who were treated was significantly shorter than the others.
Conclusion: According to the study, geographical environment and the location have a significant impact on smear positive patients’ recovery time. This impact depends on the degree of smear positivity in some provinces and is independent of it in some other provinces.