Modeling restricted mean survival time under general censoring mechanisms.

ABSTRACT: Restricted mean survival time (RMST) is often of great clinical interest in practice. Several existing methods involve explicitly projecting out patient-specific survival curves using parameters estimated through Cox regression. However, it would often be preferable to directly model the restricted mean for convenience and to yield more directly interpretable covariate effects. We propose generalized estimating equation methods to model RMST as a function of baseline covariates. The proposed methods avoid potentially problematic distributional assumptions pertaining to restricted survival time. Unlike existing methods, we allow censoring to depend on both baseline and time-dependent factors. Large sample properties of the proposed estimators are derived and simulation studies are conducted

SUBMITTER: Wang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5565738 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature