There is a huge amount of literature on statistical models for the prediction of survival after diagnosis of a wide range of diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and chronic kidney disease. Current practice is to use prediction models based on the Cox proportional hazards model and to present those as static models for remaining lifetime a

This book introduces readers to advanced statistical methods for analyzing survival data involving correlated endpoints. In particular, it describes statistical methods for applying Cox regression to two correlated endpoints by accounting for dependence between the endpoints with the aid of copulas. The practical advantages of employing copula-based models in medical research are explained on the basis of case studies. In addition, the book focuses on clustered survival data, especially data arising from meta-analysis and multicenter analysis. Consequently, the statistical approaches presented here employ a frailty term for heterogeneity modeling. This brings the joint frailty-copula model, which incorporates a frailty term and a copula, into a statistical model. The book also discusses advanced techniques for dealing with high-dimensional gene expressions and developing personalized dynamic prediction tools under the joint frailty-copula model. To help readers apply the statistical methods to real-world data, the book provides case studies using the authors’ original R software package (freely available in CRAN). The emphasis is on clinical survival data, involving time-to-tumor progression and overall survival, collected on cancer patients. Hence, the book offers an essential reference guide for medical statisticians and provides researchers with advanced, innovative statistical tools. The book also provides a concise introduction to basic multivariate survival models.

This book is comprised of presentations delivered at the 5th Workshop on Biostatistics and Bioinformatics held in Atlanta on May 5-7, 2017. Featuring twenty-two selected papers from the workshop, this book showcases the most current advances in the field, presenting new methods, theories, and case applications at the frontiers of biostatistics, bioinformatics, and interdisciplinary areas. Biostatistics and bioinformatics have been playing a key role in statistics and other scientific research fields in recent years. The goal of the 5th Workshop on Biostatistics and Bioinformatics was to stimulate research, foster interaction among researchers in field, and offer opportunities for learning and facilitating research collaborations in the era of big data. The resulting volume offers timely insights for researchers, students, and industry practitioners.

Handbook of Survival Analysis presents modern techniques and research problems in lifetime data analysis. This area of statistics deals with time-to-event data that is complicated by censoring and the dynamic nature of events occurring in time. With chapters written by leading researchers in the field, the handbook focuses on advances in survival analysis techniques, covering classical and Bayesian approaches. It gives a complete overview of the current status of survival analysis and should inspire further research in the field. Accessible to a wide range of readers, the book provides: An introduction to various areas in survival analysis for graduate students and novices A reference to modern investigations into survival analysis for more established researchers A text or supplement for a second or advanced course in survival analysis A useful guide to statistical methods for analyzing survival data experiments for practicing statisticians

In longitudinal studies it is often of interest to investigate how a marker that is repeatedly measured in time is associated with a time to an event of interest, e.g., prostate cancer studies where longitudinal PSA level measurements are collected in conjunction with the time-to-recurrence. Joint Models for Longitudinal and Time-to-Event Data: With Applications in R provides a full treatment of random effects joint models for longitudinal and time-to-event outcomes that can be utilized to analyze such data. The content is primarily explanatory, focusing on applications of joint modeling, but sufficient mathematical details are provided to facilitate understanding of the key features of these models. All illustrations put forward can be implemented in the R programming language via the freely available package JM written by the author. All the R code used in the book is available at: http://jmr.r-forge.r-project.org/

The aim of this book is to bridge the gap between standard textbook models and a range of models where the dynamic structure of the data manifests itself fully. The common denominator of such models is stochastic processes. The authors show how counting processes, martingales, and stochastic integrals fit very nicely with censored data. Beginning with standard analyses such as Kaplan-Meier plots and Cox regression, the presentation progresses to the additive hazard model and recurrent event data. Stochastic processes are also used as natural models for individual frailty; they allow sensible interpretations of a number of surprising artifacts seen in population data. The stochastic process framework is naturally connected to causality. The authors show how dynamic path analyses can incorporate many modern causality ideas in a framework that takes the time aspect seriously. To make the material accessible to the reader, a large number of practical examples, mainly from medicine, are developed in detail. Stochastic processes are introduced in an intuitive and non-technical manner. The book is aimed at investigators who use event history methods and want a better understanding of the statistical concepts. It is suitable as a textbook for graduate courses in statistics and biostatistics.

This book trains the next generation of scientists representing different disciplines to leverage the data generated during routine patient care. It formulates a more complete lexicon of evidence-based recommendations and support shared, ethical decision making by doctors with their patients. Diagnostic and therapeutic technologies continue to evolve rapidly, and both individual practitioners and clinical teams face increasingly complex ethical decisions. Unfortunately, the current state of medical knowledge does not provide the guidance to make the majority of clinical decisions on the basis of evidence. The present research infrastructure is inefficient and frequently produces unreliable results that cannot be replicated. Even randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the traditional gold standards of the research reliability hierarchy, are not without limitations. They can be costly, labor intensive, and slow, and can return results that are seldom generalizable to every patient population. Furthermore, many pertinent but unresolved clinical and medical systems issues do not seem to have attracted the interest of the research enterprise, which has come to focus instead on cellular and molecular investigations and single-agent (e.g., a drug or device) effects. For clinicians, the end result is a bit of a “data desert” when it comes to making decisions. The new research infrastructure proposed in this book will help the medical profession to make ethically sound and well informed decisions for their patients.