Ahlin Črt, Stupica Daša, Strle Franc, Lusa Lara
PhD Candidate of Statistics Programme, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Department of Infectious Diseases, University Medical Center Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
PLoS One. 2015 Apr 2;10(4):e0121760. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121760. eCollection 2015.
In biomedical studies the patients are often evaluated numerous times and a large number of variables are recorded at each time-point. Data entry and manipulation of longitudinal data can be performed using spreadsheet programs, which usually include some data plotting and analysis capabilities and are straightforward to use, but are not designed for the analyses of complex longitudinal data. Specialized statistical software offers more flexibility and capabilities, but first time users with biomedical background often find its use difficult. We developed medplot, an interactive web application that simplifies the exploration and analysis of longitudinal data. The application can be used to summarize, visualize and analyze data by researchers that are not familiar with statistical programs and whose knowledge of statistics is limited. The summary tools produce publication-ready tables and graphs. The analysis tools include features that are seldom available in spreadsheet software, such as correction for multiple testing, repeated measurement analyses and flexible non-linear modeling of the association of the numerical variables with the outcome. medplot is freely available and open source, it has an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI), it is accessible via the Internet and can be used within a web browser, without the need for installing and maintaining programs locally on the user's computer. This paper describes the application and gives detailed examples describing how to use the application on real data from a clinical study including patients with early Lyme borreliosis.
在生物医学研究中，患者通常会被多次评估，并且在每个时间点都会记录大量变量。纵向数据的数据录入和处理可以使用电子表格程序来完成，这类程序通常具备一些数据绘图和分析功能，且易于使用，但并非专为复杂纵向数据的分析而设计。专业统计软件提供了更大的灵活性和更多功能，但具有生物医学背景的首次使用者往往觉得难以使用。我们开发了medplot，这是一个交互式网络应用程序，可简化纵向数据的探索和分析。该应用程序可供不熟悉统计程序且统计学知识有限的研究人员用于汇总、可视化和分析数据。汇总工具可生成可供发表的表格和图表。分析工具包含一些电子表格软件中很少具备的功能，例如多重检验校正、重复测量分析以及数值变量与结果关联的灵活非线性建模。medplot是免费的开源软件，具有直观的图形用户界面（GUI），可通过互联网访问，并且可以在网络浏览器中使用，无需在用户计算机上本地安装和维护程序。本文介绍了该应用程序，并给出详细示例，说明如何将其用于一项包括早期莱姆病螺旋体病患者的临床研究的真实数据。
