title: Expectation maximization-based likelihood inference for flexible cure rate models with Weibull lifetimes.
abstract: Recently, a flexible cure rate survival model has been developed by assuming the number of competing causes of the event of interest to follow the Conway-Maxwell-Poisson distribution. This model includes some of the well-known cure rate models discussed in the literature as special cases. Data obtained from cancer clinical trials are often right censored and expectation maximization algorithm can be used in this case to efficiently estimate the model parameters based on right censored data. In this paper, we consider the competing cause scenario and assuming the time-to-event to follow the Weibull distribution, we derive the necessary steps of the expectation maximization algorithm for estimating the parameters of different cure rate survival models. The standard errors of the maximum likelihood estimates are obtained by inverting the observed information matrix. The method of inference developed here is examined by means of an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study. Finally, we illustrate the proposed methodology with a real data on cancer recurrence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Department of Statistics, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia bala@univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Narayanaswamy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Balakrishnan
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Suvra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pal
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000073116:Cancer Survivors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000453:epidemiology; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D015996:Survival Rate
keywords: Akaike’s information criterion; Bayesian information criterion; Conway–Maxwell–Poisson distribution; Weibull distribution; asymptotic variances; cure rate models; expectation maximization algorithm; lifetime data; long-term survivor; maximum likelihood estimators; profile likelihood