Purpose: This study compares the performance of the logistic regression and decision tree analysis
methods for assessing the risk factors for infection in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Method: The subjects were 732 cancer patients who were receiving chemotherapy at K university
hospital in Seoul, Korea. The data were collected between March 2011 and February 2013 and were
processed for descriptive analysis, logistic regression and decision tree analysis using the IBM SPSS
Statistics 19 and Modeler 15.1 programs.
Results: The most common risk factors for infection in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy were
identified as alkylating agents, vinca alkaloid and underlying diabetes mellitus. The logistic regression
explained 66.7% of the variation in the data in terms of sensitivity and 88.9% in terms of specificity. The
decision tree analysis accounted for 55.0% of the variation in the data in terms of sensitivity and 89.0% in
terms of specificity. As for the overall classification accuracy, the logistic regression explained 88.0% and
the decision tree analysis explained 87.2%.
Conclusions: The logistic regression analysis showed a higher degree of sensitivity and classification
accuracy. Therefore, logistic regression analysis is concluded to be the more effective and useful method
for establishing an infection prediction model for patients undergoing chemotherapy