title: A comparison of statistical methods for combining relative bioactivities from parallel line bioassays.
abstract: This paper compares the ordinary unweighted average, weighted average, and maximum likelihood methods for estimating a common bioactivity from multiple parallel line bioassays. Some of these or similar methods are also used in meta-analysis. Based on a simulation study, these methods are assessed by comparing coverage probabilities of the true relative bioactivity and the length of the confidence intervals computed for these methods. The ordinary unweighted average method outperforms all statistical methods by consistently giving the best coverage probability but with somewhat wider confidence intervals. The weighted average methods give good coverage and smaller confidence intervals when combining homogeneous bioactivities. For heterogeneous bioactivities, these methods work well when a liberal significance level for testing homogeneity of bioactivities is used. The maximum likelihood methods gave good coverage when homogeneous bioactivities were considered. Overall, the preferred methods are the ordinary unweighted average and two weighted average methods that were specifically developed for bioassays.
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Thembile
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mzolo
authors.forename: Marga
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hendriks
authors.forename: Edwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van den Heuvel
mesh_terms: D001681:Biological Assay / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011336:Probability
keywords: bioactivity; biological assays; heterogeneity; meta-analysis