An exact bootstrap approach towards modification of the Harrell–Davis quantile function estimator for censored data

Abstract

A new kernel quantile estimator is proposed for right-censored data, which takes the form of , where w j(u, c) is based on a beta kernel with bandwidth parameter c. The advantage of this estimator is that exact bootstrap methods may be employed to estimate the mean and variance of [Qcirc](u; c). It follows that a novel solution for finding the optimal bandwidth may be obtained through minimization of the exact bootstrap mean squared error (MSE) estimate of [Qcirc](u; c). We prove the large sample consistency of [Qcirc](u; c) for fixed values of c. A Monte Carlo simulation study shows that our estimator is significantly better than the product-limit quantile estimator [Qcirc] KM(u)=inf{t:[Fcirc] n (t)≥u}, with respect to various MSE criteria. For general simplicity, setting c=1 leads to an extension of classical Harrell–Davis estimator for censored data and performs well in simulations. The procedure is illustrated by an application to lung cancer survival data.