survival-analysiscox-regression

Calculate risk using Cox model coefficients and mean values


I'm trying to understand the example presented in Appendix C here

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6481149/

Equation C1 is clear to me.

But in Equation C2 they use the mean values. Such mean values are clear to me in the case of categorical variables for example 1.548 is the mean value of the Sex variable (as shown in the Table 3). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

But in numerical variables I don't understand which mean values are they using. For example for the Age variable they use 3.768, if I understand right, that value is the log of the mean age, should be log(44.15)=1.64. Instead the used value is 3.768.

Please could anybody clarify where does this value come from?


Solution

  • In statistics log often means the natural logarithm, sometimes denoted ln. The four values they take the logarithms of are:

    Variable Reported Mean ln(Mean) Reported
    Age 44.15 3.788 3.768
    BMI 25.61 3.243 3.230
    BP Syst 138.6 4.932 4.913
    Pulse Rate 75.61 4.326 4.311

    The calculated values are not exactly equal to the reported values. But it looks close enough that this is probably the calculation they used. Without the data and/or code they used it's hard to say why the results are different. The study mentions excluding 130 participants because of ethics protections. So, perhaps one table was calculated using a slightly different group of participants than the other table?