Survival models for exploring tuberculosis clinical trial data-an empirical comparison

Abstract

The proportional hazard (PH) model and its extension are used comprehensively to assess the effect of an intervention in the presence of covariates. The assumptions of PH model may not hold where the effect of the intervention is to accelerate the onset of an event. The accelerated failure time (AFT) model is the alternative when the PH assumption does not hold. The aim of this paper is to formulate a model that yields biological plausible and interpretable estimates of the effect of important covariates on survival time. The data consists of 1236 tuberculosis patients admitted in randomized controlled clinical trial. A total of six covariates are considered for modeling. The AFT model gives better prediction than the Cox PH model. Keywords: Accelerated failure time model; proportional hazards model; time dependent covariate, tuberculosis.