title: Joint analysis of panel count data with an informative observation process and a dependent terminal event.
abstract: Panel count data occur in many clinical and observational studies, and in many situations, the observation process may be informative and also there may exist a terminal event such as death which stops the follow-up. In this article, we propose a new joint model for the analysis of panel count data in the presence of both an informative observation process and a dependent terminal event via two latent variables. For the inference on the proposed models, a class of estimating equations is developed and the resulting estimators are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal. In addition, a lack-of-fit test is provided for assessing the adequacy of the models. Simulation studies suggest that the proposed approach works well for practical situations. A real example from a bladder cancer clinical trial is used to illustrate the proposed methods.
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematical Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100048, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Mathematics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China. zhx_math@163.com.
authors.forename: Haixiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
authors.forename: Liuquan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA.
authors.forename: Jianguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015993:Life Tables; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000473:pathology; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy
keywords: Estimating equation; Informative observation process; Joint modeling; Panel count data; Terminal event