Computerized statistical analysis with bootstrap method in nuclear medicine

Statistical analysis of data samples involves some hypothesis about the features of data themselves. The accuracy of these hypotheses can influence the results of statistical inference. Among the new methods of computer-aided statistical analysis, the bootstrap method appears to be one of the most powerful, thanks to its ability to reproduce many artificial samples starting from a single original sample and because it works without hypothesis about data distribution. The authors applied the bootstrap method to two typical situation of Nuclear Medicine Department. The determination of the normal range of serum ferritin, as assessed by radioimmunoassay and defined by the mean value ±2 standard deviations, starting from an experimental sample of small dimension, shows an unacceptable lower limit (ferritin plasmatic levels below zero). On the contrary, the results obtained by elaborating 5000 bootstrap samples gives ans interval of values (10.95 ng/ml - 72.87 ng/ml) corresponding to the normal ranges commonly reported. Moreover the authors applied the bootstrap method in evaluating the possible error associated with the correlation coefficient determined between left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) values obtained by first pass radionuclide angiocardiography with 99mTc and 195mAu. The results obtained indicate a high degree of statistical correlation and give the range of r2 values to be considered acceptable for this type of studies