Design and analysis of accelerated failure time model for cancer data

Abstract

In this study suitable survival model traced out for cancer data. The accelerated failure time (AFT) model is more appropriate when the group differences are seen over a shorter timeframe while in the longer term the probability of remaining event free is similar in the two groups. This is consistent with there being a delay in the event occurring in one group compared to the other but no permanent effect. The presence of such a delay is seen in many therapeutic settings and a range of time to event endpoints the AFT model describes a relationship between the survivor functions of any two individuals. In which explanatory variables measured on an individual are assumed to act multiplicatively on the time-scale, and so affect the rate at which an individual proceeds along the time axis. This means that the model can be interpreted in terms of the speed of progression of a disease, an interpretation that has immediate intuitive appeal.
Keywords: Survival analysis, Weibull AFT model, progression of a disease.