Faculty > Kymes

Steven M. Kymes, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
Senior Fellow, Center for Health Policy
(314) 747-4612

B.S. Business Administration, Washington University in St. Louis (1980)
Masters in Health Administration. Saint Louis University (1998)
Ph.D. Health Services Research (Majors: Health Outcomes Research; Epidemiology and Biostatistics). Saint Louis University (2002)
Dissertation Title: A New Method for Economic Evaluation of Competing Diagnostic Tests: The Importance of the Costs of Misdiagnosis, and a New Role for the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve

Research Area:

Health economics, health policy, quality of life, glaucoma, keratoconus, retinal disease

Research Interests:

Cost effectiveness of treatment and prevention of ocular disease, measurement of the impact of eye disease on quality of life, assessment of the effectiveness of diagnostic testing.

Dr. Kymes is an Assistant Professor (Research Track) in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, with a joint appointment as Research Instructor in the Division of Biostatistics. He also serves as a Senior Fellow in the Washington University Center for Health Policy and a Lecturer in the Program in Health Administration. He joined the faculty in November of 2001, as the Assistant Director of the Vision Research Coordinating Center and co-director of the Biostatistics Core Module for the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. Prior to entering academic life, Dr. Kymes held various management and marketing positions with health care and managed care organizations.

Dr. Kymes' research interests concern issues related to delivery of health care services, diagnostic testing, and health related quality of life. He is currently conducting or collaborating on studies to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of prevention of glaucoma, estimation of the economic burden of glaucoma and corneal disease, the long-term incidence of glaucoma in specific populations, and the impact of insurance benefit design of the outcomes of health care. In addition to his research work Dr. Kymes teaches courses in health policy, health program evaluation, and epidemiology.

Selected Publications:

  1. Kymes SM, Kass MA, Anderson DA, Miller JP Gordon MO for the OHTS Study Group. Management of Patients with Ocular Hypertension: A cost-effectiveness approach from the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study (OHTS). .Am J Ophthalmol June 2006, 141(6): 997-1008
  2. Kymes SM, Lee K, Fletcher JW for the SNAP Study Group. Assessing Diagnostic Accuracy and the Clinical Value of a Diagnostic Test: A Study of Positron Emission Tomography Imaging in Patients with Solitary Pulmonary Nodules (SNAP) Clinical Trials. February 2006, 3(1): 31-42.
  3. Kymes SM, Walline JJ, Zadnik K, Gordon MO for the CLEK Study Group. Quality of life in keratoconus. Am J Ophthalmol 2004; 138(10):527-35.
  4. Kymes SM, Bruns DE, Shaw LJ, Gillespie KN, Fletcher JW. Anatomy of a meta-analysis. A Critical Review of "Exercise echocardiography or exercise SPECT Imaging: A meta-analysis of diagnostic test performance." J Nuclr Cardiol 2000; 7(6):599-615.
  5. Wexler SA, Polk EE, Kymes SM. Comparison of the incidence of epithelial defects with the normal and zero compression Hansatome microkeratome. J Refract Surg 2005; 21: 359-64.
  6. Hsu CD, Kymes SM, Petrash JM. A Transgenic Mouse Model for Human Autosomal Dominant Cataract. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences May 2006, 47:2036-44.
  7. Babu AN, Kymes SM, Carpenter-Fryer SN. Eponyms and the diagnosis of aortic regurgitation: What says the evidence? Ann Int Med 2003; 138(9):736-42.


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