Dynamic treatment regimes

In medical research, a dynamic treatment regime is a set of sequential decision rules defining what actions should be taken to treat a patient based on information observed up to that point. Also referred to as adaptive treatment strategies, dynamic treatment regimes attempt to individualize treatment for patients while operationalizing clinical practice dealing with chronic illnesses. The goal of a dynamic treatment regime is to define the sequence of treatment actions which result in the most favorable clinical outcome possible.

Historically, medical research and the practice of medicine tended to rely on an acute care model for the treatment of all medical problems, including chronic illness (Wagner et al. 2001). More recently the medical field has begun to look at long term care plans to treat patients with a chronic illness. This shift in ideology, coupled with increased demand for evidence based medicine and individualized care led to the application of sequential decision making research to medical problems and the formulation of dynamic treatment regimes

Here treatment actions, A_t, are listed in the boxes branching out from the box labeled 'CANCER' and clinical observations, O_t, are listed next to the arrows between boxes.