How do I calculate the confidence interval of a mutation rate?

Question

[eric.letouze]

Hi,

I am estimating the mutation rates (mutations/Mb) in a series liver tumors. How can I estimate the confidence interval of each mutation rate? I tried using the binomial test (binom.test function in R) but it is quite computation intensive...

Any better idea?

Thanks you very much in advance,

Eric

Answer 1

[Jean-Karim Heriche]

The number of mutations per Mb follows a Poisson distribution. Here is a paper with 19 ways of computing a confidence interval for a Poisson mean.