Modeling longitudinal data using matrix completion

In clinical practice and biomedical research, measurements are often collected sparsely and irregularly in time while the data acquisition is expensive and inconvenient. Examples include measurements of spine bone mineral density, cancer growth through mammography or biopsy, a progression of defective vision, or assessment of gait in patients with neurological disorders. Since the data collection is often costly and inconvenient, estimation of progression from sparse observations is of great interest for practitioners. From the statistical standpoint, such data is often analyzed in the context of a mixed-effect model where time is treated as both a fixed-effect (population progression curve) and a random-effect (individual variability). Alternatively, researchers analyze Gaussian processes or functional data where observations are assumed to be drawn from a certain distribution of processes. These models are flexible but rely on probabilistic assumptions, require very careful implementation, specific to the given problem, and tend to be slow in practice. In this study, we propose an alternative elementary framework for analyzing longitudinal data, relying on matrix completion. Our method yields estimates of progression curves by iterative application of the Singular Value Decomposition. Our framework covers multivariate longitudinal data, regression, and can be easily extended to other settings. As it relies on existing tools for matrix algebra it is efficient and easy to implement. We apply our methods to understand trends of progression of motor impairment in children with Cerebral Palsy. Our model approximates individual progression curves and explains 30% of the variability. Low-rank representation of progression trends enables identification of different progression trends in subtypes of Cerebral Palsy.