Title

Interaction Trees With Censored Survival Data

Keywords

CART; Censored survival times; Random forests; Subgroup analysis

Abstract

We propose an interaction tree (IT) procedure to optimize the subgroup analysis in comparative studies that involve censored survival times. The proposed method recursively partitions the data into two subsets that show the greatest interaction with the treatment, which results in a number of objectively defined subgroups: in some of them the treatment effect is prominent while in others the treatment may have a negligible or even negative effect. The resultant tree structure can be used to explore the overall interaction between treatment and other covariates and help identify and describe possible target populations on which an experimental treatment demonstrates desired efficacy. We follow the standard CART (Breiman, et al., 1984) methodology to develop the interaction tree structure. Variable importance information is extracted via random forests of interaction trees. Both simulated experiments and an analysis of the primary billiary cirrhosis (PBC) data are provided for evaluation and illustration of the proposed procedure. Copyright ©2008 The Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

1-1-2008

Publication Title

International Journal of Biostatistics

Volume

4

Issue

1

Number of Pages

-

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.2202/1557-4679.1071

Socpus ID

38849159045 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/38849159045

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