The Program in Medical Decision Making is led by Dr. Scott B. Cantor, Assistant Professor of Health Services Research. The program's main emphasis is on the prescriptive analysis of clinical oncology problems, using the tools of clinical decision analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. Descriptive studies seek to explain decision-making behavior; these have included utility assessment and preference elicitation. Methodological advances in medical decision making, particularly in the areas of diagnostic testing and cost-effectiveness analysis, have been developed through the study of applied clinical problems.

Current projects include the following:

• Cost-effectiveness analysis of strategies for the screening, diagnosis and management
  of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia

• Patient and spouse preferences on screening for prostate cancer

• Efficacy of balance sheets in prostate cancer screening decisions

• Utility assessment for cancer pain health states

• Cost-effectiveness of chest computed tomography in patients with soft-tissue sarcomas

• Outcome evaluation in recurrent rectal cancer

• Discriminative ability of binary diagnostic tests

• Zones of indifference in health policy space for Monte Carlo simulation

• Ethics and medical decision making