Table 2.

Balanced error rates for random forest analysis of cases versus controls for samples collected at varying time intervals prior to diagnosis

	< 5 years	5–9 years	10–15 years	> 15 years	All samples
Balanced error ratea,b	0.43	0.49	0.50	0.54	0.46

Potential confounders (body mass index, smoking status, education level, diabetes, alcohol intake, and recreational physical activity) were included in the models, but none was selected in the built-in variable selection step. ^aBalanced error rate for a two-class problem with expected BER by chance of 0.50. ^bSince there is a 1:1 match between cases and controls (i.e., the data are perfectly balanced), the overall error rate is equal to the balanced error rate