Biomaterial Database

Comparison of parametric and non-parametric survival methods using simulated clinical data. 1997

J W Gamel, and R L Vogel

Veterans Administration Medical Center, Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

We derived three parametric survival models (the log-normal, log logit, and Weibull) from the clinical data of chemotherapy trials for stage II breast cancer. We then used these models to generate simulated survival data, which we analysed using both parametric (log-normal) and non-parametric (logrank, Gray-Tsiatis and Laska-Meisner) methods. With limited follow-up (5 years), the non-parametric tests had greater power than the log-normal model. This advantage diminished, however, with extended follow-up (15 years). Furthermore, only the log-normal model could distinguish reliably a survival advantage due to an increase in cured fraction from an advantage due to an increase in time to failure.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D001943	Breast Neoplasms	Tumors or cancer of the human BREAST.	Breast Cancer,Breast Tumors,Cancer of Breast,Breast Carcinoma,Cancer of the Breast,Human Mammary Carcinoma,Malignant Neoplasm of Breast,Malignant Tumor of Breast,Mammary Cancer,Mammary Carcinoma, Human,Mammary Neoplasm, Human,Mammary Neoplasms, Human,Neoplasms, Breast,Tumors, Breast,Breast Carcinomas,Breast Malignant Neoplasm,Breast Malignant Neoplasms,Breast Malignant Tumor,Breast Malignant Tumors,Breast Neoplasm,Breast Tumor,Cancer, Breast,Cancer, Mammary,Cancers, Mammary,Carcinoma, Breast,Carcinoma, Human Mammary,Carcinomas, Breast,Carcinomas, Human Mammary,Human Mammary Carcinomas,Human Mammary Neoplasm,Human Mammary Neoplasms,Mammary Cancers,Mammary Carcinomas, Human,Neoplasm, Breast,Neoplasm, Human Mammary,Neoplasms, Human Mammary,Tumor, Breast
D002986	Clinical Trials as Topic	Works about pre-planned studies of the safety, efficacy, or optimum dosage schedule (if appropriate) of one or more diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques selected according to predetermined criteria of eligibility and observed for predefined evidence of favorable and unfavorable effects. This concept includes clinical trials conducted both in the U.S. and in other countries.	Clinical Trial as Topic
D005260	Female		Females
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D012680	Sensitivity and Specificity	Binary classification measures to assess test results. Sensitivity or recall rate is the proportion of true positives. Specificity is the probability of correctly determining the absence of a condition. (From Last, Dictionary of Epidemiology, 2d ed)	Specificity,Sensitivity,Specificity and Sensitivity
D016014	Linear Models	Statistical models in which the value of a parameter for a given value of a factor is assumed to be equal to a + bx, where a and b are constants. The models predict a linear regression.	Linear Regression,Log-Linear Models,Models, Linear,Linear Model,Linear Regressions,Log Linear Models,Log-Linear Model,Model, Linear,Model, Log-Linear,Models, Log-Linear,Regression, Linear,Regressions, Linear
D016019	Survival Analysis	A class of statistical procedures for estimating the survival function (function of time, starting with a population 100% well at a given time and providing the percentage of the population still well at later times). The survival analysis is then used for making inferences about the effects of treatments, prognostic factors, exposures, and other covariates on the function.	Analysis, Survival,Analyses, Survival,Survival Analyses
D017024	Chemotherapy, Adjuvant	Drug therapy given to augment or stimulate some other form of treatment such as surgery or radiation therapy. Adjuvant chemotherapy is commonly used in the therapy of cancer and can be administered before or after the primary treatment.	Adjuvant Chemotherapy,Drug Therapy, Adjuvant,Adjuvant Drug Therapy
D018709	Statistics, Nonparametric	A class of statistical methods applicable to a large set of probability distributions used to test for correlation, location, independence, etc. In most nonparametric statistical tests, the original scores or observations are replaced by another variable containing less information. An important class of nonparametric tests employs the ordinal properties of the data. Another class of tests uses information about whether an observation is above or below some fixed value such as the median, and a third class is based on the frequency of the occurrence of runs in the data. (From McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 4th ed, p1284; Corsini, Concise Encyclopedia of Psychology, 1987, p764-5)	Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test,Kruskal-Wallis H Statistic,Mann-Whitney U Test,Rank-Sum Tests,Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient,Wilcox Test,Wilcoxon Rank Test,Non-Parametric Statistics,Nonparametric Statistics,Statistics, Non-Parametric,Kolmogorov Smirnov Test,Mann Whitney U Test,Non Parametric Statistics,Rank Sum Tests,Rank Test, Wilcoxon,Rank-Sum Test,Statistics, Non Parametric,Test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov,Test, Mann-Whitney U,Test, Rank-Sum,Test, Wilcox,Test, Wilcoxon Rank,Tests, Rank-Sum,U Test, Mann-Whitney