Log transformation: application and interpretation in biomedical research

The log transformation has been widely used in biomedical research to deal with the skewed data. However, in the medical publications, we have found many misuses and misinterpretations of analysis based on log‐transformed data. In this paper, we list some common scenarios of misuse and misinterpreta...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStatistics in medicine Vol. 32; no. 2; pp. 230 - 239
Main Authors Feng, Changyong, Wang, Hongyue, Lu, Naiji, Tu, Xin M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 30.01.2013
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Biomedical Research
Data analysis
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Design of experiments
geometric mean
Humans
hypothesis testing
Research Design
skewness
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Summary:The log transformation has been widely used in biomedical research to deal with the skewed data. However, in the medical publications, we have found many misuses and misinterpretations of analysis based on log‐transformed data. In this paper, we list some common scenarios of misuse and misinterpretation of log transformation in biomedical applications. We also provide both theoretical and practical justifications to support our viewpoints. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliography:istex:BAA2016474A789A2C649694C53AB591F81D35E9A
ArticleID:SIM5486
ark:/67375/WNG-P8PZ4PTB-5
National Institutes of Health - No. 5U19AI056390-05; No. 3 UL1 RR024160-02S1
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0277-6715
1097-0258
DOI:10.1002/sim.5486