Abstract
I assume the survival function of treated cancer patients to be a mixture of two subpopulations, withcequal to the proportion who will die of other causes, and 1 —cthe proportion who will die of their disease. Using census data, I estimate the parameters of the survival distribution of those patients dying of other causes, and then use follow‐up data to determine the maximum likelihood estimates of the proportion constantcand the parameters of the survival function of those dying of their disease. I illustrate the methodology using data from a prospective clinical trial in breast cancer.

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