Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making
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Markov transition models are frequently used to model disease progression. The authors show how the solution to Kolmogorov's forward equations can be exploited to map between transition rates and probabilities from probability data in multistate models. ⋯ An illustrative example for a 3-state model is given, which shows how the methods extend to more complex Markov models using the software WBDiff to compute solutions. Finally, the authors illustrate how to statistically combine data from multiple sources, including partially observed data at several follow-up times and also how to calibrate a Markov model to be consistent with data from one specific study.