A Multi-State Model for Lung Cancer Mortality in Survival Progression

Vinoth Raman, Sandra S. Ferreira (), Dário Ferreira and Ayman Alzaatreh
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Vinoth Raman: Deanship of Quality and Academic Accreditation, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia
Sandra S. Ferreira: Department of Mathematics, University of Beira Interior, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Dário Ferreira: Department of Mathematics, University of Beira Interior, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Ayman Alzaatreh: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates

Stats, 2025, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: Lung cancer remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide due to its high rates of illness and mortality. In this study, we applied a continuous-time multi-state Markov model to examine how lung cancer progresses through six clinically defined stages, using retrospective data from 576 patients. The model describes movements between disease stages and the final stage (death), providing estimates of how long patients typically remain in each stage and how quickly they move to the next. It also considers important demographic and clinical factors such as age, smoking history, hypertension, asthma, and gender, which influence survival outcomes. Our findings show slower changes at the beginning of the disease but faster decline in later stages, with clear differences across patient groups. This approach highlights the dynamic course of the illness and can help guide tailored follow-up, personalized treatment, and health policy decisions. The study is based on a secondary analysis of publicly available data and therefore did not require clinical trial registration.

Keywords: lung cancer progression; multi-state Markov model; survival analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 C10 C11 C14 C15 C16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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