School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia.
Centre for Biomedical Electrical Engineering (CBME), University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2018 Aug 10;8(1):11979. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-30469-8.
C-reactive protein (CRP) is an acute-phase plasma protein that can be used as a biomarker for activation of the immune system. A spectral analysis of CRP level over time for patients with gynaecological tumours has been reported by Madondo et al., using a periodogram method, suggesting that there is no significant periodicity in the data. In our study, we investigate the impact of low sample number on periodogram analysis, for non-uniform sampling intervals-we conclude that data of Madondo et al. cannot rule out periodic behaviour. The search for patterns (periodic or otherwise) in the CRP time-series is of interest for providing a cue for the optimal times at which cancer therapies are best administered. In this paper we show (i) there is no evidence to rule out periodicity in CRP levels, and (ii) we provide a prescription for the minimum data sample rate required in future experiments for improved testing of a periodic CRP signal hypothesis. The analysis we provide may be used for establishing periodicity in any short time-series signal that is observed without a priori information.
C 反应蛋白（CRP）是一种急性相血浆蛋白，可用作免疫系统激活的生物标志物。Madondo 等人使用周期图法报告了妇科肿瘤患者 CRP 水平随时间的光谱分析，表明数据中没有明显的周期性。在我们的研究中，我们研究了低样本数量对非均匀采样间隔的周期图分析的影响-我们的结论是，Madondo 等人的数据不能排除周期性行为。寻找 CRP 时间序列中的模式（周期性或其他）对于提供线索以确定癌症治疗的最佳给药时间很有意义。在本文中，我们表明（i）没有证据排除 CRP 水平的周期性，并且（ii）我们为未来实验中所需的最小数据样本率提供了一个规定，以改善对周期性 CRP 信号假设的测试。我们提供的分析可用于在没有先验信息的情况下观察到的任何短时间序列信号中建立周期性。
