Dose-Response Analysis Using R

PLoS One. 2015 Dec 30;10(12):e0146021. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146021. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Dose-response analysis can be carried out using multi-purpose commercial statistical software, but except for a few special cases the analysis easily becomes cumbersome as relevant, non-standard output requires manual programming. The extension package drc for the statistical environment R provides a flexible and versatile infrastructure for dose-response analyses in general. The present version of the package, reflecting extensions and modifications over the last decade, provides a user-friendly interface to specify the model assumptions about the dose-response relationship and comes with a number of extractors for summarizing fitted models and carrying out inference on derived parameters. The aim of the present paper is to provide an overview of state-of-the-art dose-response analysis, both in terms of general concepts that have evolved and matured over the years and by means of concrete examples.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Data Interpretation, Statistical*
  • Dose-Response Relationship, Drug*
  • Humans
  • Least-Squares Analysis
  • Likelihood Functions
  • Models, Statistical
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Software

Grants and funding

The authors have no support or funding to report.