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Dr. Ana F. Best

Mathematical Statistician, Biostatistics Branch

Biosketch:

Dr. Best has been a member of the Biometric Research Program since 2019. Prior to this, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Biostatistics Branch of the NCI Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. She received her Ph.D. in Statistics from McGill University in 2015. Her current responsibilities in BRP include biomarker statistical review of clinical trial protocols and proposals for the use of biospecimens, membership on the iMATCH Diagnostic Selection Working Group and ComboMATCH Molecular Biomarkers and Specimen Management Committee, and participation in the NCI COVID-19 in Cancer Patients Study (NCCAPS) as a study statistician. She serves on the editorial boards of JNCI: Cancer Spectrum and the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and is a member of the Regional Advisory Board of the Eastern North American Region of the International Biometric Society (ENAR).

Research Interests:

Biomarkers and biomarker measurement error in clinical trial design and analysis, design and analysis for pooled specimen studies, survival analysis, risk prediction, cancer surveillance, cancer rate forecasting, cancer susceptibility syndromes.

CV (Updated January, 2024)

Selected Publications:

Best AF, Bowman M, Li J, Mishkin GE, Denicoff A, Shekfeh M, Rubinstein L, Warner JL, Rini B, Korde LA. COVID-19 severity by vaccination status in the NCI COVID-19 and Cancer Patients Study (NCCAPS), Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2023. 115(5): 597-600. PMID: 36702472

Litton JK, Regan MM, Pusztai L, Rugo HS, Tolaney SM, Garrett-Mayer E, Amiri-Kordestani L, Basho RK, Best AF, Boileau J-F, Denkert C, Foster JC, Harbeck N, Jacene HA, King TA, Mason G, O'Sullivan CC, Prowell TM, Richardson AL, Sepulveda KA, Smith ML, Tjoe JA, Turashvili G, Woodward WA, Butler LP, Schwartz EI, Korde LA. Standardized definitions for efficacy end points in neoadjuvant breast cancer clinical trials: NeoSTEEP, Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2023. 41(27): 4433-4442. PMID: 37433103

Best AF, Malinovsky Y, Albert PS. The efficient design of nested group testing algorithms for disease identification in clustered data, Journal of Applied Statistics, 2022. DOI: 10.1111/insr.125109

Sankaran H, Finnigan SR, McShane LM, Best AF, Seibel NL. Enrollment of adolescent and young adult patients newly diagnosed with cancer in NCI CTEP-sponsored clinical trials before and after launch of the NCI National Clinical Trials Network, Cancer. PMID: 36089859

de Andrade KC, Khincha PP, Hatton JN, Frone MN, Wegman-Ostrosky T, Mai PL, Best AF, Savage SA. Cancer incidence, patterns, and genotype-phenotype associations in individuals with pathogenic germline TP53 variants: an observational study, Lancet Oncology, 2021. 22(12): 1787-1789 PMID: 34780712

Bhala S, Stewart DR, Kennerley V, Petkov VI, Rosenberg PS, Best AF. Incidence of benign meningiomas in the United States: current and future trends, JNCI Cancer Spectrum, 2021. 5(3): pkab035. PMID: 34250440

Oba L, Best AF, Mai PL, Achatz MI, Savage SA, Khincha PP. Utility of interim blood tests for cancer screening in Li-Fraumeni syndrome, Familial Cancer, 2021. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34076823

Tolaney SM, Garrett-Mayer E, White J, Blinder VS, Foster JC, Amiri-Kordestani L, Hwang ES, Bliss JM, Rakovitch E, Perlmutter J, Spears PA, Frank E, Tung NM, Elias AD, Cameron D, Denduluri N, Best AF, DiLeo A, Baizer L, Butler LP, Schwartz E, Winer EP, Korde LA. Updated standardized definitions for efficacy end points (STEEP) in adjuvant breast cancer clinical trials: STEEP Version 2.0. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2021. 39(24): 2720-2731. PMID: 34003702

Best AF, Tucker MA, Frone MN, Greene MH, Peters JA, Katki HA. A pragmatic testing-eligibility framework for population mutation screening: The example of BRCA1/2. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. 2019. 28 (2): 293-302. PMID: 30692095

Best AF, Hilbert JE, Wood L, Martens WB, Nikolenko N, Marini-Bettolo C, Lochmuller H, Rosenberg PS, Moxley RT 3rd, Greene MH, Gadalla SM. Survival patterns and cancer determinants in families with myotonic dystrophy type 1. European Journal of Neurology. 2019. 26(1): 58-65. PMID: 30051542

Best AF, Haozous EA, Berrington de Gonzalez A, Chernyavskiy P, Freedman ND, Hartge P, Thomas D, Rosenberg PS, Shiels MS. Premature mortality projections in the USA through 2030: a modelling study. The Lancet Public Health. 2018. 3(8): e374-e385. PMID: 30037721

Best AF, Wolfson DB. Risk-set-sampling of left-truncated survival data. Canadian Journal of Statistics. 2017. 45(1): 4-28. DOI: 10.1002/cjs.11311

Alter BP, Best AF. Frequency of heterozygous germline pathogenic variants in genes for Fanconi anemia in patients with non-BRCA1/BRCA2 breast cancer: a meta-analysis. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 2020. 182:465-476. PMID: 32488392.

Stewart DR, Best AF, Williams GM, Harney LA, Carr AG, Harris AK, Kratz CP, Dehner LP, Messinger YH, Rosenberg PS, Hill DA, Schultz KAP. Neoplasm risk among individuals with a pathogenic germline variant in DICER1. Journal of Clnical Oncology. 2019. 37 (8): 668-676. PMID: 30714996

Tota J, Best AF, Zubsteg ZS, Gillison ML, Rosenberg PS, Chaturvedi A. Evolution of the oropharynx cancer epidemic in the United States: moderation of increasing incidence in younger individuals and shift in the burden to older individuals. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2019, 37(18): 1538-1546. PMID: 31026209

Khincha PP, Best AF, Fraumeni JF Jr, Loud JT, Savage SA, Achatz MI. Reproductive factors associated with breast cancer risk in Li-Fraumeni syndrome. European Journal of Cancer, 2019. 116: 199-206. PMID: 31212162

Wolfson DB, Best AF, Addona V, Wolfson J, Gadalla SM. Benefits of combining prevalent and incident cohorts: An application to myotonic dystrophy. Statistical Methods in Medical Research. 2019. 28(10-11): 3333-3345. PMID: 30293502

Ballinger ML, Best A, ..., Thomas DM, Savage SA. Baseline surveillance in Li-Fraumeni syndrome using whole-body magnetic resonance imaging: A meta-analysis. JAMA Oncology. 2017. 3(12): 1634-1639. PMID: 28772291

Mai PL, Best AF, Peters JA, DeCastro RM, Khincha PP, Loud JT, Bremer RC, Rosenberg PS, Savage SA. Risks of first and subsequent cancers among TP53 mutation carriersin the National Cancer Institute Li-Fraumeni syndrome cohort. Cancer. 2016. 122(23): 3673-3681: PMID: 27496082