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  5. Mireya Diaz-Insua

Mireya Diaz-Insua, PhD

Professor
Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
School of Medicine
Director
PQHS Biostatistics Core
Director
Case CCC Biostatistics Shared Resource
Member
Population and Cancer Prevention Program
Case Comprehensive Cancer Center

Dr. Diaz has over 21 years of experience developing and managing research projects and conducting statistical analyses of health data in collaborative and real-world settings. Many of these years she was privileged to (1) work as Director of Biostatistics at Vattikuti Urology Institute, one of the pioneer centers of the robotic technique in Urology and (2) work as the American Urologic Association’s methodologist on guidelines and other projects. Both collaborations gave her first-hand knowledge about surgical care, medical innovation and diffusion of technology, evidence generation and assessment, guidelines development and policy. She provided methodological rigor to these endeavors while learning about translating quantitative findings into actionable medical care statements. During her tenure at the VUI, she had the opportunity to build a personalized model of recurrence after robotic prostatectomy which allowed targeting post-surgical management to the disease stage and health status of the patient. This study answered the debated question about the long-term cancer control-based comparative effectiveness of the robotic approach with respect to the open modality. It also proposed a risk-based, post-operative surveillance scheme for optimal medical decision-making. VUI implemented this surveillance scheme. This work received two institutional awards for its contributions to cancer care.

In her role as Chief of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, Dr. Diaz restructured the division in terms of procedures and staff. These changes translated into a more productively efficient and collegial work environment, as well as a more cohesive and highly motivated team of professionals. This environment assisted in preserving the team cohesiveness and efficiency throughout the pandemic where the team worked completely remote. In this role she supervised an analytics portfolio of research and quality improvement projects from the school’s investigators spanning from onset to completion of about 150 projects per year.

Research Information

Research Interests

To develop, implement, and assess statistical/analytical methods for

  • Confounding adjustment in observational data (EHR, disease registries, cohorts)

  • Clustered data (time, space, networks, other clusters)

  • Evidence synthesis (particularly meta-analysis of complex outcome structures, ontologies)

  • Stochastic processes and ensembles

Publications

View All Publications

Real-world comparative effectiveness of robotic surgery in managing urologic malignancies

Medical guidelines and best practice statements for urologic conditions

  • Peters CA, Skoog SJ, Arant BS, Copp HL, Elder JS, Hudson RG, Khoury AE, Lorenzo AJ, Pohl HG, Shapiro E, Snodgrass WT, Diaz M. Summary of the AUA guideline of management of primary vesicoureteral reflux in children. J Urol 2010; 184:1134-44. PMID: 20650499 (Article is in the top 1% of Clinical Medicine)
  • Skoog SJ, Peters CA, Arant BS, Copp HL, Elder JS, Hudson RG, Khoury AE, Lorenzo AJ, Pohl HG, Shapiro E, Snodgrass WT, Diaz M. Pediatric vesicoureteral reflux guidelines panel summary report: clinical practice guidelines for screening siblings of children with vesicoureteral reflux and neonates/infants with prenatal hydronephrosis. J Urol 2010; 184:1145-51. PMID: 20650494.
  • Donat SM, Diaz M, Bishoff JT, Coleman JA, Dahm P, Derweesh IH, Herrell SD, Hilton S, Jonasch E, Lin DW, Reuter VE, Chang SS. Follow-up for clinically localized renal neoplasms: AUA guideline. J Urol 2013; 190:407-16. PMID: 23665399.
  • Kolon TF, Herndon CDA, Baker LA, Baskin LS, Baxter CG, Cheng EY, Diaz M, Lee PA, Seashore CJ, Tasian GE, Barthold JS. Evaluation and treatment of cryptorchidism: AUA Guideline. J Urol 2014; 192:337-45. PMID: 24857650.

Meta-analytic methods

  • Diaz M. Performance measures of the bivariate random effects model for meta-analyses of diagnostic accuracy. Comp Stat Data Anal 2015; 83:82.
  • Hoaglin DC, Hawkins N, Jansen JP, Scott DA, Itzler R, Cappelleri JC, Boersma C, Thompsom D, Larholt KM, Diaz M, Barret A. Conducting indirect-treatment-comparison and network-meta-analysis studies: report of the ISPOR Task Force on Indirect Treatment Comparisons Good Research Practices: Part 2. Value in Health 2011; 14:429-37. PMID: 21669367.
  • Diaz M. Meta-analysis of complex data via mixed models: tools for synthesizing evidence-based medicine. ISPOR Connections 2007;13:11.
  • Szczotka-Flynn L, Diaz M. Risk of corneal inflammatory events with silicone hydrogel and low Dk hydrogel extended contact lens wear: A meta-analysis. Optom Vis Sci 2007; 84:247-56. PMID: 17435508. (Used for FDA approval of Vistakon’s extended wear lenses)

Adaptation of statistical methods to handle correlated data

  • Tsafrir Z, Janosek-Albright K, Aoun J, Diaz-Insua M, Abd-El-Barr A-E-R, Schiff L, Talukdar S, Menon M, Munkarah A, Theoharis E, Eisenstein D. The impact of a wireless audio system on communication in robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery: A prospective controlled trial. PLoS ONE 2020; 15(1):e0220214. PMID: 31923185.
  • Kryvenko ON, Diaz M, Meier FA, Ramineni M, Menon M, Gupta NS. Findings in 12-core transrectal ultrasound guided prostate needle biopsy (TRUS) that predict more advanced cancer at prostatectomy: analysis of 388 biopsy-prostatectomy pairs. Am J Clin Pathol 2012; 137:739-46. PMID: 22523212.
  • Diaz M, Rao JS. Non-parametric bootstrap ensembles for detection of tumor lesions. Pattern Recognition Letters 2007; 28:2273-83.
  • Agarwal PK, Diaz M, Elder JS. Retractile testis-Is it really a normal variant? J Urol 2006; 175:1496-9. PMID: 16516034.

Outcomes research in elderly with cancer from large observational data sources

  • Koroukian SM, Xu F, Bakaki PM, Diaz M, Towe TP, Owusu C. Comorbidities, functional limitations and geriatric syndromes in relation to treatment and survival patterns among elders with colorectal cancer. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 2010; 65:322-9. PMID: 20018824.

Epidemiology

Publishing impact   

Metrics from Web of Science and Scopus 

  • H-index: 30/31
  • Total peer-reviewed publications from CV: 74 
  • Total citations:  3,447
  • Publications in top-tier journals: 34%

 

Education

PhD
Biostatistics
Case Western Reserve University
2002
MS
Biomedical Engineering
Case Western Reserve University
1999
BS
Electrical Engineering
Universidad Metropolitana
1994

Additional Information

Professional/Leadership Experience:

  • 2017-2023: Professor, Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine Western Michigan University
  • 2017-2022: Chief, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine Western Michigan University
  • 2008-2022: Associate Scientist and Director of Biostatistics, Vattikuti Urology
  • Institute, Henry Ford Health System
  • 2007-2008: Acting Director of Biostatistics, Director of Biostatistics Core for Psoriasis Center of Research Translation, Case Western Reserve University
  • 2002-2008: Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University
  • 1998-2002: Webmaster, software and database developer, statistical consultant, teaching assistant, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University

Active grants:

  • Case Comprehensive Cancer Center P30: Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Source