Modeling Survival Data Extending The Cox Model

This book is for statistical practitioners, particularly those who design and analyze studies for survival and event history data. Building on recent developments motivated by counting process and martingale theory, it shows the reader how to extend the Cox model to analyze multiple/correlated event data using marginal and random effects. The focus is on actual data examples, the analysis and interpretation of results, and computation. The book shows how these new methods can be implemented in SAS and S-Plus, including computer code, worked examples, and data sets.

This book is for statistical practitioners, particularly those who design and analyze studies for survival and event history data. Building on recent developments motivated by counting process and martingale theory, it shows the reader how to extend the Cox model to analyze multiple/correlated event data using marginal and random effects. The focus is on actual data examples, the analysis and interpretation of results, and computation. The book shows how these new methods can be implemented in SAS and S-Plus, including computer code, worked examples, and data sets.

A straightforward and easy-to-follow introduction to the main concepts and techniques of the subject. It is based on numerous courses given by the author to students and researchers in the health sciences and is written with such readers in mind. A "user-friendly" layout includes numerous illustrations and exercises and the book is written in such a way so as to enable readers learn directly without the assistance of a classroom instructor. Throughout, there is an emphasis on presenting each new topic backed by real examples of a survival analysis investigation, followed up with thorough analyses of real data sets. Each chapter concludes with practice exercises to help readers reinforce their understanding of the concepts covered, before going on to a more comprehensive test. Answers to both are included. Readers will enjoy David Kleinbaums style of presentation, making this an excellent introduction for all those coming to the subject for the first time.

Readers will find in the pages of this book a treatment of the statistical analysis of clustered survival data. Such data are encountered in many scientific disciplines including human and veterinary medicine, biology, epidemiology, public health and demography. A typical example is the time to death in cancer patients, with patients clustered in hospitals. Frailty models provide a powerful tool to analyze clustered survival data. In this book different methods based on the frailty model are described and it is demonstrated how they can be used to analyze clustered survival data. All programs used for these examples are available on the Springer website.

In longitudinal studies it is often of interest to investigate how a marker that is repeatedly measured in time is associated with a time to an event of interest, e.g., prostate cancer studies where longitudinal PSA level measurements are collected in conjunction with the time-to-recurrence. Joint Models for Longitudinal and Time-to-Event Data: With Applications in R provides a full treatment of random effects joint models for longitudinal and time-to-event outcomes that can be utilized to analyze such data. The content is primarily explanatory, focusing on applications of joint modeling, but sufficient mathematical details are provided to facilitate understanding of the key features of these models. All illustrations put forward can be implemented in the R programming language via the freely available package JM written by the author. All the R code used in the book is available at: http://jmr.r-forge.r-project.org/

This book studies and applies modern flexible regression models for survival data with a special focus on extensions of the Cox model and alternative models with the aim of describing time-varying effects of explanatory variables. Use of the suggested models and methods is illustrated on real data examples, using the R-package timereg developed by the authors, which is applied throughout the book with worked examples for the data sets.

"This book fits right into a needed niche: rigorous enough to give full explanation of the power of the S language, yet accessible enough to assign to social science graduate students without fear of intimidation. It is a tremendous balance of applied statistical "firepower" and thoughtful explanation. It meets all of the important mechanical needs: each example is given in detail, code and data are freely available, and the nuances of models are given rather than just the bare essentials. It also meets some important theoretical needs: linear models, categorical data analysis, an introduction to applying GLMs, a discussion of model diagnostics, and useful instructions on writing customized functions. " —JEFF GILL, University of Florida, Gainesville