title: Latency and time-dependent exposure in a case-control study.
abstract: Detailed historical data are elicited often from subjects in retrospective studies, yielding time-dependent measures of exposures. Investigation of a hypothesized period of latency can be made by examining disease/exposure relationships in multiple time windows, either along the age or time-before diagnosis axes. We suggest splitting the data into many time intervals and separately fitting regression models to the available data in each interval. Covariances between estimated coefficients from different intervals are empirically estimated, and used for assessing variability of specified functions of the time-specific coefficients. Alternative methods of interval formation and their consequences are discussed. We apply these methods to a French case-control study of oral contraceptive use and cervical cancer incidence, and compare the results to those of standard analyses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109.
authors.forename: L H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Moulton
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Lê
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002278:Carcinoma in Situ / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000453:epidemiology; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000453:epidemiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003276:Contraceptives, Oral / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012306:Risk; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D003276:Contraceptives, Oral