On the limitations of the area under the ROC curve for NTCP modelling

Emanuel Bahn; Markus Alber

doi:10.1016/j.radonc.2019.11.018

On the limitations of the area under the ROC curve for NTCP modelling

Radiother Oncol. 2020 Mar:144:148-151. doi: 10.1016/j.radonc.2019.11.018. Epub 2019 Dec 5.

Authors

Emanuel Bahn¹, Markus Alber²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiation Oncology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany; Heidelberg Institute of Radiation Oncology (HIRO), Heidelberg, Germany; National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), Heidelberg, Germany; Clinical Cooperation Unit Radiation Oncology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany. Electronic address: emanuel.bahn@med.uni-heidelberg.de.
² Department of Radiation Oncology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany; Heidelberg Institute of Radiation Oncology (HIRO), Heidelberg, Germany; National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), Heidelberg, Germany.

PMID: 31812929
DOI: 10.1016/j.radonc.2019.11.018

Abstract

The area under the ROC curve (AUC) is commonly used as a measure for the discriminative performance of NTCP models. Here, we demonstrate that for typical patient cohorts, the AUC is an unsuitable measure for that purpose since it is typically limited to values below 0.8 and it exhibits large statistical variation.

Keywords: AUC; Model validation; NTCP; Normal tissue complications; ROC curve.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Area Under Curve
Humans
ROC Curve
Radiation Injuries*