Andrew Vickers PhD

Dr. Vickers’ research falls into three broad areas: randomized trials, surgical outcomes research and molecular marker studies. A particular focus of his work is the detection and initial treatment of prostate cancer. Dr Vickers has analyzed the ’learning curve’ for radical prostatectomy. He is working on a series of studies demonstrating that a single measure of prostate specific antigen (PSA) taken in middle age can predict aggressive prostate cancer up to 30 years subsequently and had developed a statistical model for predicting the result of prostate biopsy based on a panel of markers. His work on randomized trials focuses on methods for integrating randomized trials into routine surgical practice so as to compare different approaches to surgery. As part of this work, he has pioneered the use of web-interfaces for obtaining quality of life data from patients recovering from radical prostatectomy and he is now core director of the Web Survey Core Facility.

Dr. Vickers’ methodological research centers primarily on novel methods for assessing the clinical value of predictive tools. In particular, he has developed decision-analytic tools that can be directly applied to a data set, without the need for data gathering on patient preferences or utilities. Dr Vickers has a strong interest in teaching statistics. He is course leader for the Memorial Sloan Kettering biostatistics course, teaches on the undergraduate curriculum at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and is the author of the introductory textbook “What is a p-value anyway?”