Statistical Inference for Quality-Adjusted Survival Time

摘要

In evaluations of breast cancer therapies, the patients' quality of life is receiving more and more attention. It is desirable that a treatment not only prolongs the overall survival life, but also improves the quality of life (QOL). Quality-adjusted lifetime (QAL) is a measure that combines both the quality and the quantity of a person's lifetime. The goal of my research is to study how to draw inference about QAL in the presence of censoring. For the grant period, I have studied the following problems: (1) Estimating survival functions of QAL (2) Testing the equality of two survival functions of QAL. (3) Testing the equality of survival functions of QAL from three or more groups. (4) Developing regression methods for evaluating the effects of covariates on QAL. My research has resulted in a manuscript that has been submitted and invited talks at statistical conferences.