A Review on Calibration Methods of Cancer Simulation Models

Calibration, a critical step in the development of simulation models, involves adjusting unobservable parameters to ensure that the outcomes of the model closely align with observed target data. This process is particularly vital in cancer simulation models with a natural history component where direct data to inform natural history parameters are rarely available. This work reviews the literature of cancer simulation models with a natural history component and identifies the calibration approaches used in these models with respect to the following attributes: calibration target, goodness-of-fit (GOF) measure, parameter search algorithm, acceptance criteria, and stopping rules. After a comprehensive search of the PubMed database from 1981 to June 2023, 68 studies were included in the review. Nearly all (n=66) articles specified the calibration targets, and most articles (n=56) specified the parameter search algorithms they used, whereas goodness-of-fit metric (n=51) and acceptance criteria/stopping rule (n=45) were reported for fewer times. The most frequently used calibration targets were incidence, mortality, and prevalence, whose data sources primarily come from cancer registries and observational studies. The most used goodness-of-fit measure was weighted mean squared error. Random search has been the predominant method for parameter search, followed by grid search and Nelder-mead method. Machine learning-based algorithms, despite their fast advancement in the recent decade, has been underutilized in the cancer simulation models. More research is needed to compare different parameter search algorithms used for calibration. Key points This work reviewed the literature of cancer simulation models with a natural history component and identified the calibration approaches used in these models with respect to the following attributes: calibration target, goodness-of-fit (GOF) measure, parameter search algorithm, acceptance criteria, and stopping rules. Random search has been the predominant method for parameter search, followed by grid search and Nelder-mead method. Machine learning-based algorithms, despite their fast advancement in the recent decade, has been underutilized in the cancer simulation models. Furthermore, more research is needed to compare different parameter search algorithms used for calibration.