Premium
Accuracy of point predictions in survival analysis
Author(s) -
Henderson Robin,
Jones Margaret,
Stare Janez
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.913
Subject(s) - reliability (semiconductor) , computer science , measure (data warehouse) , point (geometry) , statistics , survival analysis , time point , econometrics , data mining , mathematics , power (physics) , physics , geometry , philosophy , quantum mechanics , aesthetics
Survival time prediction is important in many applications, particularly for patients diagnosed with terminal diseases. A measure of prediction error taken from the medical literature is advocated as a practicable method of quantifying reliability of point predictions. Optimum predictions are derived for familiar survival models and the accuracy of these predictions is investigated. We argue that poor predictive capability is inherent to standard survival models with realistic parameter values. A lung cancer example is used to illustrate difficulties in prediction in practice. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.