Estimating survival and association in a semicompeting risks model

In many follow-up studies, patients are subject to concurrent events. In this article, we consider semicompeting risks data as defined by Fine, Jiang, and Chappell (2001, Biometrika 88, 907-919) where one event is censored by the other but not vice versa. The proposed model involves marginal survival functions for the two events and a parametric family of copulas for their dependency. This article suggests a general method for estimating the dependence parameter when the dependency is modeled with an Archimedean copula. It uses the copula-graphic estimator of Zheng and Klein (1995, Biometrika 82, 127-138) for estimating the survival function of the nonterminal event, subject to dependent censoring. Asymptotic properties of these estimators are derived. Simulations show that the new methods work well with finite samples. The copula-graphic estimator is shown to be more accurate than the estimator proposed by Fine et al. (2001); its performances are similar to those of the self-consistent estimator of Jiang, Fine, Kosorok, and Chappell (2005, Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 33, 1-20). The analysis of a data set, emphasizing the estimation of characteristics of the observable region, is presented as an illustration.