Aalen Additive Model: A Application for Data of Sinusite in Patients with Aids

Tarciana Liberal Pereira, Enrico Antônio Colosimo & Maria Cristina Raposo

 

Abstract             

In survival analysis sometimes the interest is not just on the failure time distribution function. It is common treatment comparisons as well as studying the effect of covariates in the response. This fact happens in engineering and clinical studies. Covariates effects are usually incorporated in the analysis by using a regression model. Moreover, in some real situations, covariates may be monitored and measured along the follow-up period. These covariates are known as time-dependent covariates. Analysis that include these covariates can be more reliable. Aalen proposed an additive risk model that is very attractive. This model has showed some practical advantages especially when the covariates effects varies in time. The main advantage of this model it is that through graphical analysis it is possible to verify changes in the time in the influence of each one of the covariates. That is, analyses with this model supply information detailed regarding the secular influence of each covariate. This model is presented in this paper in terms of time-dependent covariates. A real data set related to HIV patients and time to develop sinusitis is used to illustrate the fit of the additive Aalen model.

 

Key words: Time-dependent covariate, Aalen model, Additive risk

 

PDF (Portuguese)