Estimating time to disease progression comparing transition models and survival methods--an analysis of multiple sclerosis data.

ABSTRACT: This article reports an analysis that aims to quantify the effect of fingolimod, an oral treatment for relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), on disability progression. The standard approach utilizes survival analysis methods, which may be problematic for MS studies that assess disability at only a few time points and include as a cardinal feature both relapses and remissions. Instead, a Markov transition model, originally developed in the framework of longitudinal data, is fit, and its special probabilistic properties are used to estimate survival curves for time to disability progression. The transition approach models the whole disability process and uses all available transition data for inference, while survival methods concentrate on a single event of interest and use only time

SUBMITTER: Mandel M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3909474 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature