Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Eric Nantz

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Statistics

Title: Testing Equality of Competing Risks of Patient Discontinuation across Multiple Disease States

Committee:
Dr. Michael Stoline, Chair
Dr. Joseph McKean
Dr. Rajib Paul
Dr. Hong Liu-Seifert

Date: Friday, April 17, 2009 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
1030 Fetzer Center

Abstract:
Previous statistical analysis of patient discontinuation in clinical trials has used discontinuation status as the response of interest. These analyses assume that the risks of discontinuation for specific reasons (lack of efficacy, adverse events, and other reasons) are independent of each other and that significant risk factors for patient discontinuation have the same effect on the different causes of discontinuation. However, it is possible that the underlying risks of discontinuation for specific reasons could be related and that risk factors for one type of discontinuation could have a very different effect on another type of discontinuation. The competing risks methodology can be applied to determine significant predictors of discontinuation for specific reasons and test for significant differences between the different risks of discontinuation. These competing risks methods are applied to real-world clinical trial data in multiple disease states, which have not been applied previously in the analysis of patient discontinuation.