Estimating the quality-of-life-adjusted gap time distribution of successive events subject to censoring

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Andrei, Adin-Cristian; Murray, Susan
• 署名单位: University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
• 刊物名称: BIOMETRIKA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0006-3444
• DOI: 10.1093/biomet/93.2.343
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 343355
• 关键词: locally efficient estimation; nonparametric-estimation; survival-time

摘要

When treatment effects are studied in the context of successive or recurrent life events, separate analyses of the quality-of-life scores and of the inter-event, gap, times might lead to possibly contradictory conclusions. In an attempt to reconcile this, we propose a unitary and more comprehensive nonparametric analysis that combines the two separate analyses by introducing the quality-of-life-adjusted gap time concept. Inverse probability of censoring estimators of the quality-of-life-adjusted gap time joint and conditional distributions are proposed and are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal. Simulations performed in a variety of scenarios indicate that the joint and conditional quality-of-life-adjusted gap time distribution estimators are virtually unbiased, with properly estimated standard errors and asymptotic normality features. An example from the International Breast Cancer Study Group Trial V illustrates the use of the proposed estimators.