An Alternative Promotion Time Cure Model with Overdispersed Number of Competing Causes: An Application to Melanoma Data

Diego I. Gallardo, Mário de Castro and Héctor W. Gómez
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Diego I. Gallardo: Departamento de Matemática, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Atacama, Copiapó 1530000, Chile
Mário de Castro: Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos 13560-095, Brazil
Héctor W. Gómez: Departamento de Matemática, Facultad de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad de Antofagasta, Antofagasta 1240000, Chile

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 15, 1-14

Abstract: A cure rate model under the competing risks setup is proposed. For the number of competing causes related to the occurrence of the event of interest, we posit the one-parameter Bell distribution, which accommodates overdispersed counts. The model is parameterized in the cure rate, which is linked to covariates. Parameter estimation is based on the maximum likelihood method. Estimates are computed via the EM algorithm. In order to compare different models, a selection criterion for non-nested models is implemented. Results from simulation studies indicate that the estimation method and the model selection criterion have a good performance. A dataset on melanoma is analyzed using the proposed model as well as some models from the literature.

Keywords: bell distribution; EM algorithm; long-term survival model; maximum likelihood; model comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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