IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/lifeda/v24y2018i3d10.1007_s10985-017-9408-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Two-sample tests for survival data from observational studies

Author

Listed:
  • Chenxi Li

    (Michigan State University)

Abstract

When observational data are used to compare treatment-specific survivals, regular two-sample tests, such as the log-rank test, need to be adjusted for the imbalance between treatments with respect to baseline covariate distributions. Besides, the standard assumption that survival time and censoring time are conditionally independent given the treatment, required for the regular two-sample tests, may not be realistic in observational studies. Moreover, treatment-specific hazards are often non-proportional, resulting in small power for the log-rank test. In this paper, we propose a set of adjusted weighted log-rank tests and their supremum versions by inverse probability of treatment and censoring weighting to compare treatment-specific survivals based on data from observational studies. These tests are proven to be asymptotically correct. Simulation studies show that with realistic sample sizes and censoring rates, the proposed tests have the desired Type I error probabilities and are more powerful than the adjusted log-rank test when the treatment-specific hazards differ in non-proportional ways. A real data example illustrates the practical utility of the new methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Chenxi Li, 2018. "Two-sample tests for survival data from observational studies," Lifetime Data Analysis: An International Journal Devoted to Statistical Methods and Applications for Time-to-Event Data, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 509-531, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:lifeda:v:24:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s10985-017-9408-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10985-017-9408-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10985-017-9408-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10985-017-9408-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R.D. Gill, 1980. "Censoring and Stochastic Integrals," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 34(2), pages 124-124, June.
    2. Min Zhang & Douglas E. Schaubel, 2012. "Double-Robust Semiparametric Estimator for Differences in Restricted Mean Lifetimes in Observational Studies," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 999-1009, December.
    3. Douglas E. Schaubel & Guanghui Wei, 2011. "Double Inverse-Weighted Estimation of Cumulative Treatment Effects Under Nonproportional Hazards and Dependent Censoring," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 29-38, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rachel Axelrod & Daniel Nevo, 2023. "A sensitivity analysis approach for the causal hazard ratio in randomized and observational studies," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 2743-2756, September.
    2. Erica Brittain & Dean Follmann & Song Yang, 2008. "Dynamic Comparison of Kaplan–Meier Proportions: Monitoring a Randomized Clinical Trial with a Long-Term Binary Endpoint," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 64(1), pages 189-197, March.
    3. Xiaofeng Lv & Gupeng Zhang & Guangyu Ren, 2017. "Gini index estimation for lifetime data," Lifetime Data Analysis: An International Journal Devoted to Statistical Methods and Applications for Time-to-Event Data, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 275-304, April.
    4. Phadia, Eswar G. & Shao, Peter Yi-Shi, 1999. "Exact moments of the product limit estimator," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 277-286, February.
    5. Yi Wu & Wei Yu & Xuejun Wang, 2022. "Strong representations of the Kaplan–Meier estimator and hazard estimator with censored widely orthant dependent data," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 383-402, March.
    6. Han-Ying Liang & Jacobo Uña-Álvarez, 2011. "Asymptotic properties of conditional quantile estimator for censored dependent observations," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 63(2), pages 267-289, April.
    7. Ganesh B. Malla, 2022. "A Monte Carlo Simulation Comparison of Some Nonparametric Survival Functions for Incomplete Data," Journal of Mathematics Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(5), pages 1-1, November.
    8. Imbens, G.W., 1989. "Duration models with time-varying coefficients," Other publications TiSEM 8432944f-1cfc-4403-bcbe-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. H. Michael & L. Tian, 2017. "Discussion of “A risk-based measure of time-varying prognostic discrimination for survival models,” by C. Jason Liang and Patrick J. Heagerty," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 73(3), pages 735-738, September.
    10. Lee, Seung-Hwan & Lee, Eun-Joo & Omolo, Bernard Oguna, 2008. "Using integrated weighted survival difference for the two-sample censored data problem," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(9), pages 4410-4416, May.
    11. Gang Li & Somnath Datta, 2001. "A Bootstrap Approach to Nonparametric Regression for Right Censored Data," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 53(4), pages 708-729, December.
    12. Li, Gang & Sun, Yanqing, 2000. "A simulation-based goodness-of-fit test for survival data," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 403-410, May.
    13. Morten Overgaard & Stefan Nygaard Hansen, 2021. "On the assumption of independent right censoring," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1234-1255, December.
    14. Hongwei Zhao & Anastasios A. Tsiatis, 2001. "Testing Equality of Survival Functions of Quality-Adjusted Lifetime," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 861-867, September.
    15. Kevin Hasegawa Eng & Michael R. Kosorok, 2005. "A Sample Size Formula for the Supremum Log-Rank Statistic," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 86-91, March.
    16. Sun, Liuquan & Zhou, Yong, 1998. "Sequential confidence bands for densities under truncated and censored data," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 31-41, September.
    17. Yang, Song, 1996. "Weighted empiricals and the product-limit estimator in the multiplicative hazard and time transfer regression model," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 17-24, September.
    18. Su, Pei-Fang & Chi, Yunchan & Li, Chung-I & Shyr, Yu & Liao, Yi-De, 2011. "Analyzing survival curves at a fixed point in time for paired and clustered right-censored data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 1617-1628, April.
    19. Thomas DeLeire & Shakeeb Khan & Christopher Timmins, 2013. "Roy Model Sorting And Nonrandom Selection In The Valuation Of A Statistical Life," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(1), pages 279-306, February.
    20. Yizhe Xu & Tom H. Greene & Adam P. Bress & Brian C. Sauer & Brandon K. Bellows & Yue Zhang & William S. Weintraub & Andrew E. Moran & Jincheng Shen, 2022. "Estimating the optimal individualized treatment rule from a cost‐effectiveness perspective," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 337-351, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:lifeda:v:24:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s10985-017-9408-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.