Stochastic trees and the StoTree modeling environment: models and software for medical decision analysis.

In this paper we present a review of stochastic trees, a convenient modeling approach for medical treatment decision analyses. Stochastic trees are a generalization of decision trees that incorporate useful features from continuous-time Markov chains. We also discuss StoTree, a freely available software tool for the formulation and solution of stochastic trees, implemented in the Excel spreadsheet environment.