Comparison of Shared Frailty Models for Kidney Infection Data under Exponential Power Baseline Distribution

Shared frailty models are often used to model heterogeneity in survival analysis. There are certain assumptions about the baseline distribution and distribution of frailty. In this paper, four shared frailty models with frailty distribution gamma, inverse Gaussian, compound Poisson, and compound negative binomial with exponential power as baseline distribution are proposed. These models are fitted using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. These models are illustrated with a real life bivariate survival data set of McGilchrist and Aisbett (1991) related to kidney infection, and the best model is suggested for the data using different model comparison criteria.     

Gamma shared frailty model based on reversed hazard rate

Abstract

Frailty models are used in survival analysis to account for unobserved heterogeneity in individual risks to disease and death. To analyze bivariate data on related survival times (e.g., matched pairs experiments, twin, or family data), shared frailty models were suggested. Shared frailty models are frequently used to model heterogeneity in survival analysis. The most common shared frailty model is a model in which hazard function is a product of random factor(frailty) and baseline hazard function which is common to all individuals. There are certain assumptions about the baseline distribution and distribution of frailty. In this paper, we introduce shared gamma frailty models with reversed hazard rate. We introduce Bayesian estimation procedure using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique to estimate the parameters involved in the model. We present a simulation study to compare the true values of the parameters with the estimated values. Also, we apply the proposed model to the Australian twin data set.     

Survival functions for the frailty models based on the discrete compound Poisson process

Frailty models are often used to model heterogeneity in survival analysis. The distribution of the frailty is generally assumed to be continuous. In some circumstances, it is appropriate to consider discrete frailty distributions. Having zero frailty can be interpreted as being immune, and population heterogeneity may be analysed using discrete frailty models. In this paper, survival functions are derived for the frailty models based on the discrete compound Poisson process. Maximum likelihood estimation procedures for the parameters are studied. We examine the fit of the models to earthquake and the traffic accidents’ data sets from Turkey.     

Modelling survival data using mixtures of frailties

Frailty models are often used to describe the extra heterogeneity in survival data by introducing an individual random, unobserved effect. The frailty term is usually assumed to act multiplicatively on a baseline hazard function common to all individuals. In order to apply the frailty model, a specific frailty distribution has to be assumed. If at least one of the latent variables is continuous, the frailty must follow a continuous distribution. In this paper, a finite mixture of continuous frailty distributions is used in order to describe situations in which one (or more) of the latent variables separates the population in study into two (or more) subpopulations. Closure properties of the unobserved quantity are given along with the maximum-likelihood estimates under the most common choices of frailty distributions. The model is illustrated on a set of lifetime data.     

Frailty regression models in mixture distributions

We propose frailty regression models in mixture distributions and assume the distribution of frailty as gamma or positive stable or power variance function distribution. We consider Weibull mixture as an example. There are some interesting situations like survival times in genetic epidemiology, dental implants of patients and twin births (both monozygotic and dizygotic) where genetic behavior (which is unknown and random) of patients follows a known frailty distribution. These are the situations which motivate to study this particular model.     

Modeling bivariate survival data using shared inverse Gaussian frailty model

ABSTRACT

The shared frailty models are often used to model heterogeneity in survival analysis. The most common shared frailty model is a model in which hazard function is a product of a random factor (frailty) and the baseline hazard function which is common to all individuals. There are certain assumptions about the baseline distribution and the distribution of frailty. In this paper, we consider inverse Gaussian distribution as frailty distribution and three different baseline distributions, namely the generalized Rayleigh, the weighted exponential, and the extended Weibull distributions. With these three baseline distributions, we propose three different inverse Gaussian shared frailty models. We also compare these models with the models where the above-mentioned distributions are considered without frailty. We develop the Bayesian estimation procedure using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique to estimate the parameters involved in these models. We present a simulation study to compare the true values of the parameters with the estimated values. A search of the literature suggests that currently no work has been done for these three baseline distributions with a shared inverse Gaussian frailty so far. We also apply these three models by using a real-life bivariate survival data set of McGilchrist and Aisbett (1991 McGilchrist, C.A., Aisbett, C.W. (1991). Regression with frailty in survival analysis. Biometrics 47:461–466.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) related to the kidney infection data and a better model is suggested for the data using the Bayesian model selection criteria.     

Graphical Tests for the Frailty Distribution in the Shared Frailty Model

We extend a diagnostic plot for the frailty distribution in proportional hazards models to the case of shared frailty. The plot is based on a closure property of exponential family failure distributions with canonical statistics z and g(z), namely that the frailty distribution among survivors at time t has the same form, with the same values of the parameters associated with g(z). We extend this property to shared frailty, considering various definitions of a “surviving” cluster at time t. We illustrate the effectiveness of the method in the case where the “death” of the cluster is defined by the first death among its members.     

Robust Poisson likelihood estimation for frailty Cox models: A simulation study

Frailty models can be fit as mixed-effects Poisson models after transforming time-to-event data to the Poisson model framework. We assess, through simulations, the robustness of Poisson likelihood estimation for Cox proportional hazards models with log-normal frailties under misspecified frailty distribution. The log-gamma and Laplace distributions were used as true distributions for frailties on a natural log scale. Factors such as the magnitude of heterogeneity, censoring rate, number and sizes of groups were explored. In the simulations, the Poisson modeling approach that assumes log-normally distributed frailties provided accurate estimates of within- and between-group fixed effects even under a misspecified frailty distribution. Non-robust estimation of variance components was observed in the situations of substantial heterogeneity, large event rates, or high data dimensions.     

Inference Methods for Correlated Left Truncated Lifetimes: Parent and Offspring Relations in an Adoption Study

The associations in mortality of adult adoptees and their biological or adoptive parents have been studied in order to separate genetic and environmental influences. The 1003 Danish adoptees born 1924–26 have previously been analysed in a Cox regression model, using dichotomised versions of the parents’ lifetimes as covariates. This model will be referred to as the conditional Cox model, as it analyses lifetimes of adoptees conditional on parental lifetimes. Shared frailty models may be more satisfactory by using the entire observed lifetime of the parents. In a simulation study, sample size, distribution of lifetimes, truncation- and censoring patterns were chosen to illustrate aspects of the adoption dataset, and were generated from the conditional Cox model or a shared frailty model with gamma distributed frailties. First, efficiency was compared in the conditional Cox model and a shared frailty model, based on the conditional approach. For data with type 1 censoring the models showed no differences, whereas in data with random or no censoring, the models had different power in favour of the one from which data were generated. Secondly, estimation in the shared frailty model by a conditional approach or a two-stage copula approach was compared. Both approaches worked well, with no sign of dependence upon the truncation pattern, but some sign of bias depending on the censoring. For frailty parameters close to zero, we found bias when the estimation procedure used did not allow negative estimates. Based on this evaluation, we prefer to use frailty models allowing for negative frailty parameter estimates. The conclusions from earlier analyses of the adoption study were confirmed, though without greater precision than using the conditional Cox model. Analyses of associations between parental lifetimes are also presented.     

The Generalized Waring Process and Its Application

The generalized Waring distribution is a discrete distribution with a wide spectrum of applications in areas such as accident statistics, income analysis, environmental statistics, etc. It has been used as a model that better describes such practical situations as opposed to the Poisson distribution or the negative binomial distribution. Associated to both the Poisson and negative binomial distributions are the well-known Poisson and Pólya processes. In this article, the generalized Waring process is defined. Two models have been shown to lead to the generalized Waring process. One is related to a Cox process, while the other is a compound Poisson process. The defined generalized Waring process is shown to be a stationary, but non homogenous Markov process. Several properties are studied and the intensity, individual intensity, and Chapman–Kolmogorov differential equations of it are obtained. Moreover, the Poisson and Pólya processes are shown to arise as special cases of the generalized Waring process. Using this fact, some known results and some properties of them are obtained.     

Some stochastic properties of conditionally dependent frailty models

The frailty approach is commonly used in reliability theory and survival analysis to model the dependence between lifetimes of individuals or components subject to common risk factors; according to this model the frailty (an unobservable random vector that describes environmental conditions) acts simultaneously on the hazard functions of the lifetimes. Some interesting conditions for stochastic comparisons between random vectors defined in accordance with these models have been described in the literature; in particular, comparisons between frailty models have been studied by assuming independence for the baseline survival functions and the corresponding environmental parameters. In this paper, a generalization of these models is developed, which assumes conditional dependence between the components of the random vector, and some conditions for stochastic comparisons are provided. Some examples of frailty models satisfying these conditions are also described.     

Analysis of Bivariate Survival Data using Shared Inverse Gaussian Frailty Model

In this article, we consider shared frailty model with inverse Gaussian distribution as frailty distribution and log-logistic distribution (LLD) as baseline distribution for bivariate survival times. We fit this model to three real-life bivariate survival data sets. The problem of analyzing and estimating parameters of shared inverse Gaussian frailty is the interest of this article and then compare the results with shared gamma frailty model under the same baseline for considered three data sets. Data are analyzed using Bayesian approach to the analysis of clustered survival data in which there is a dependence of failure time observations within the same group. The variance component estimation provides the estimated dispersion of the random effects. We carried out a test for frailty (or heterogeneity) using Bayes factor. Model comparison is made using information criteria and Bayes factor. We observed that the shared inverse Gaussian frailty model with LLD as baseline is the better fit for all three bivariate data sets.     

Stochastic comparisons of multivariate frailty models

A multivariate frailty model in which survival function depends on baseline distributions of components and the frailty random variable is considered. Since misspecification in choice of frailty distribution and/or baseline distribution may affect the distribution of multivariate frailty model, using theory of stochastic orders, we compare multivariate frailty models arising from different choices of frailty distribution.     

A shared parameter model of longitudinal measurements and survival time with heterogeneous random-effects distribution

Typical joint modeling of longitudinal measurements and time to event data assumes that two models share a common set of random effects with a normal distribution assumption. But, sometimes the underlying population that the sample is extracted from is a heterogeneous population and detecting homogeneous subsamples of it is an important scientific question. In this paper, a finite mixture of normal distributions for the shared random effects is proposed for considering the heterogeneity in the population. For detecting whether the unobserved heterogeneity exits or not, we use a simple graphical exploratory diagnostic tool proposed by Verbeke and Molenberghs [34] to assess whether the traditional normality assumption for the random effects in the mixed model is adequate. In the joint modeling setting, in the case of evidence against normality (homogeneity), a finite mixture of normals is used for the shared random-effects distribution. A Bayesian MCMC procedure is developed for parameter estimation and inference. The methodology is illustrated using some simulation studies. Also, the proposed approach is used for analyzing a real HIV data set, using the heterogeneous joint model for this data set, the individuals are classified into two groups: a group with high risk and a group with moderate risk.     

Shared frailty models based on reversed hazard rate for modified inverse Weibull distribution as baseline distribution

The unknown or unobservable risk factors in the survival analysis cause heterogeneity between individuals. Frailty models are used in the survival analysis to account for the unobserved heterogeneity in individual risks to disease and death. To analyze the bivariate data on related survival times, the shared frailty models were suggested. The most common shared frailty model is a model in which frailty act multiplicatively on the hazard function. In this paper, we introduce the shared gamma frailty model and the inverse Gaussian frailty model with the reversed hazard rate. We introduce the Bayesian estimation procedure using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique to estimate the parameters involved in the model. We present a simulation study to compare the true values of the parameters with the estimated values. We also apply the proposed models to the Australian twin data set and a better model is suggested.     

A bayesian analysis of multivariate survival data from multi-stage cluster sampling

Large scale sample surveys often collect survival times that are clustered at a number of hierarchical levels. Only the case where three levels are nested is considered here: that is, individual response times (level- i) are grouped into larger units (level-2) which in turn are grouped into much larger units (level-3). It is assumed that individuals in a unit share a common, unobservable and specific random frailty which induces an association between survival times in the unit. A Bayesian hierarchical analysis of the data is examined by modelling the survival time (level-1) using a semipanmietric Cox proportional hazards and specific level-2 and level-3 random frailty effects are assumed independent and modelled as gamma distributions. The complete posterior distribution of all the model parameters is estimated using the Gibbs sampler, a Monte Carlo method.     

Shared frailty model for recurrent event data with multiple causes

The topic of heterogeneity in the analysis of recurrent event data has received considerable attention recent times. Frailty models are widely employed in such situations as they allow us to model the heterogeneity through common random effect. In this paper, we introduce a shared frailty model for gap time distributions of recurrent events with multiple causes. The parameters of the model are estimated using EM algorithm. An extensive simulation study is used to assess the performance of the method. Finally, we apply the proposed model to a real-life data.     

Discretizing a compound distribution with application to categorical modelling

Many probability distributions can be represented as compound distributions. Consider some parameter vector as random. The compound distribution is the expected distribution of the variable of interest given the random parameters. Our idea is to define a partition of the domain of definition of the random parameters, so that we can represent the expected density of the variable of interest as a finite mixture of conditional densities. We then model the mixture probabilities of the conditional densities using information on population categories, thus modifying the original overall model. We thus obtain specific models for sub-populations that stem from the overall model. The distribution of a sub-population of interest is thus completely specified in terms of mixing probabilities. All characteristics of interest can be derived from this distribution and the comparison between sub-populations easily proceeds from the comparison of the mixing probabilities. A real example based on EU-SILC data is given. Then the methodology is investigated through simulation.     

Defective models induced by gamma frailty term for survival data with cured fraction

In this paper, we propose a defective model induced by a frailty term for modeling the proportion of cured. Unlike most of the cure rate models, defective models have advantage of modeling the cure rate without adding any extra parameter in model. The introduction of an unobserved heterogeneity among individuals has bring advantages for the estimated model. The influence of unobserved covariates is incorporated using a proportional hazard model. The frailty term assumed to follow a gamma distribution is introduced on the hazard rate to control the unobservable heterogeneity of the patients. We assume that the baseline distribution follows a Gompertz and inverse Gaussian defective distributions. Thus we propose and discuss two defective distributions: the defective gamma-Gompertz and gamma-inverse Gaussian regression models. Simulation studies are performed to verify the asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood estimator. Lastly, in order to illustrate the proposed model, we present three applications in real data sets, in which one of them we are using for the first time, related to a study about breast cancer in the A.C.Camargo Cancer Center, São Paulo, Brazil.     

Characterizations of distributions through coincidences of semiparametric families

Semiparametric families are families that have both a real parameter and a parameter that is itself a distribution. A number of semiparametric families suitable for lifetime data are introduced: scale, power, frailty (proportional hazards), age, moment, Laplace transform, and convolution parameter families. The coincidence of two families provides a characterization of the underlying distribution. Characterizations of the Weibull, gamma, lognormal, and Gompertz distributions are obtained.