Tests for symmetry with right censoring

Abstract

Permutation tests for symmetry are suggested using data that are subject to right censoring. Such tests are directly relevant to the assumptions that underlie the generalized Wilcoxon test since the symmetric logistic distribution for log-errors has been used to motivate Wilcoxon scores in the censored accelerated failure time model. Its principal competitor is the log-rank (LGR) test motivated by an extreme value error distribution that is positively skewed. The proposed one-sided tests for symmetry against the alternative of positive skewness are directly relevant to the choice between usage of these two tests. The permutation tests use statistics from the weighted LGR class normally used for making two-sample comparisons. From this class, the test using LGR weights (all weights equal) showed the greatest discriminatory power in simulations that compared the possibility of logistic errors versus extreme value errors. In the test construction, a median estimate, determined by inverting the Kaplan–Meier estimator, is used to divide the data into a “control” group to its left that is compared with a “treatment” group to its right. As an unavoidable consequence of testing symmetry, data in the control group that have been censored become uninformative in performing this two-sample test. Thus, early heavy censoring of data can reduce the effective sample size of the control group and result in diminished power for discriminating symmetry in the population distribution.