Stephen Deppen, MA, MS
Database Analyst, Department of Thoracic Surgery
PhD Epidemiology Student
Mr. Deppen is starting his thesis as a PhD candidate in the Epidemiology PhD program at Vanderbilt. His work is focused on improving the accuracy of the diagnosis of lung cancer. He is using large databases to more accurately predict patients who do not need surgical procedures and also evaluating the accuracy of our current diagnostic tests. His is the lead author on a manuscript titled: “Accuracy of FDG-PET to diagnose lung cancer in a region of endemic granulomatous disease,” which was published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery in August 2011. He is working to develop a predictive ¬statistical model for surgical patients with suspicious pulmonary nodules. He recently submitted an abstract to the 2011 Congress of Epidemiology titled “Multiple Imputation in a Clinical Prediction Model for Lung Cancer”.