title: Censored quantile regression for residual lifetimes.
abstract: We propose a regression method that studies covariate effects on the conditional quantiles of residual lifetimes at a certain followup time point. This can be particularly useful in cancer studies, where more patients survive cancers initially and a patient's residual life expectancy is used to compare the efficacy of secondary or adjuvant therapies. The new method provides a consistent estimator that often exhibits smaller standard error in real and simulated examples, compared to the existing method of Jung et al. (2009). It also provides a simple empirical likelihood inference method that does not require estimating the covariance matrix of the estimator or resampling. We apply the new method to a breast cancer study (NSABP Protocol B-04, Fisher et al. (2002)) and estimate median residual lifetimes at various followup time points, adjusting for important prognostic factors.
authors.affiliation: Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH 45229, USA. miok.kim@cchmc.org
authors.forename: Mi-Ok
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Mai
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Jong-Hyeon
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Jeong
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015993:Life Tables; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011379:Prognosis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D016019:Survival Analysis