Browsing by Subject "competing risks"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Impact of dependent left truncation in semiparametric competing risks methods: A simulation study
    (Taylor & Francis, 2017) Bakoyannis, Giorgos; Touloumi, Giota; Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health
    In this study, we investigated the robustness of the methods that account for independent left truncation when applied to competing risks settings with dependent left truncation. We specifically focused on the methods for the proportional cause-specific hazards model and the Fine–Gray model. Simulation experiments showed that these methods are not in general robust against dependent left truncation. The magnitude of the bias was analogous to the strength of the association between left truncation and failure times, the effect of the covariate on the competing cause of failure, and the baseline hazard of left truncation time.
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    Nonparametric inference for Markov processes with missing absorbing state
    (Statistica Sinica, 2019) Bakoyannis, Giorgos; Zhang, Ying; Yiannoutsos, Constantin T.
    This study examines nonparametric estimations of a transition proba- bility matrix of a nonhomogeneous Markov process with a nite state space and a partially observed absorbing state. We impose a missing-at-random assumption and propose a computationally e cient nonparametric maximum pseudolikelihood estimator (NPMPLE). The estimator depends on a parametric model that is used to estimate the probability of each absorbing state for the missing observations based, potentially, on auxiliary data. For the latter model, we propose a formal goodness- of- t test based on a residual process. Using modern empirical process theory, we show that the estimator is uniformly consistent and converges weakly to a tight mean-zero Gaussian random eld. We also provide a methodology for constructing simultaneous con dence bands. Simulation studies show that the NPMPLE works well with small sample sizes and that it is robust against some degree of misspec- i cation of the parametric model for the missing absorbing states. The method is illustrated using HIV data from sub-Saharan Africa to estimate the transition probabilities of death and disengagement from HIV care.
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    Semiparametric Regression Under Left-Truncated and Interval-Censored Competing Risks Data and Missing Cause of Failure
    (2020-04) Park, Jun; Bakoyannis, Giorgos; Yiannoutsos, Constantin T.; Zhang, Ying; Gao, Sujuan; Song, Yiqing
    Observational studies and clinical trials with time-to-event data frequently involve multiple event types, known as competing risks. The cumulative incidence function (CIF) is a particularly useful parameter as it explicitly quantifies clinical prognosis. Common issues in competing risks data analysis on the CIF include interval censoring, missing event types, and left truncation. Interval censoring occurs when the event time is not observed but is only known to lie between two observation times, such as clinic visits. Left truncation, also known as delayed entry, is the phenomenon where certain participants enter the study after the onset of disease under study. These individuals with an event prior to their potential study entry time are not included in the analysis and this can induce selection bias. In order to address unmet needs in appropriate methods and software for competing risks data analysis, this thesis focuses the following development of application and methods. First, we develop a convenient and exible tool, the R package intccr, that performs semiparametric regression analysis on the CIF for interval-censored competing risks data. Second, we adopt the augmented inverse probability weighting method to deal with both interval censoring and missing event types. We show that the resulting estimates are consistent and double robust. We illustrate this method using data from the East-African International Epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA EA) where a significant portion of the event types is missing. Last, we develop an estimation method for semiparametric analysis on the CIF for competing risks data subject to both interval censoring and left truncation. This method is applied to the Indianapolis-Ibadan Dementia Project to identify prognostic factors of dementia in elder adults. Overall, the methods developed here are incorporated in the R package intccr.