Life Tables, Survival Analysis and Cox Regression

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-507
Author(s):  
Mohammad Tavakolizadeh-Ravari ◽  
Faramarz Soheili ◽  
Fatemeh Makkizadeh ◽  
Fatemeh Akrami

The current research employs two survival analysis methods: Cox regression and life tables. The first determines the effect of inventor, assignee and country for receiving the first citation by patents. Life tables concern the time-lag between the dates of granting and receiving the first citation by patents. Bradford’s method is also established as a technique for categorization of patents, inventors, assignees and countries as a prerequisite for survival analysis. The research materials consist of 2837 patents in the area of ‘purification, separation, or recovery of hydrocarbon components’ which were classified under the classes 585/800 and 585/868 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The findings showed that Bradford’s method complies with the distribution of citations of patents, first inventors and assignees. It means that Bradford’s distribution is well suited for determination of key patents, inventors and assignees in an area too. Cox regression revealed that only the inventors’ variable decides for receiving the first citation in terms of frequency, degrees of their inventions and citations. Life table data revealed that one half of the first citations were received in the first 10 years. As a conclusion, survival analysis methods provide the possibility for deciding technology lifetime and for predicting the determinants for the flow of knowledge through citation analysis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilari Kuitunen ◽  
Ville T. Ponkilainen ◽  
Mikko M. Uimonen ◽  
Antti Eskelinen ◽  
Aleksi Reito

Abstract Background Survival analysis and effect of covariates on survival time is a central research interest. Cox proportional hazards regression remains as a gold standard in the survival analysis. The Cox model relies on the assumption of proportional hazards (PH) across different covariates. PH assumptions should be assessed and handled if violated. Our aim was to investigate the reporting of the Cox regression model details and testing of the PH assumption in survival analysis in total joint arthroplasty (TJA) studies. Methods We conducted a review in the PubMed database on 28th August 2019. A total of 1154 studies were identified. The abstracts of these studies were screened for words “cox and “hazard*” and if either was found the abstract was read. The abstract had to fulfill the following criteria to be included in the full-text phase: topic was knee or hip TJA surgery; survival analysis was used, and hazard ratio reported. If all the presented criteria were met, the full-text version of the article was then read. The full-text was included if Cox method was used to analyze TJA survival. After accessing the full-texts 318 articles were included in final analysis. Results The PH assumption was mentioned in 114 of the included studies (36%). KM analysis was used in 281 (88%) studies and the KM curves were presented graphically in 243 of these (87%). In 110 (45%) studies, the KM survival curves crossed in at least one of the presented figures. The most common way to test the PH assumption was to inspect the log-minus-log plots (n = 59). The time-axis division method was the most used corrected model (n = 30) in cox analysis. Of the 318 included studies only 63 (20%) met the following criteria: PH assumption mentioned, PH assumption tested, testing method of the PH assumption named, the result of the testing mentioned, and the Cox regression model corrected, if required. Conclusions Reporting and testing of the PH assumption and dealing with non-proportionality in hip and knee TJA studies was limited. More awareness and education regarding the assumptions behind the used statistical models among researchers, reviewers and editors are needed to improve the quality of TJA research. This could be achieved by better collaboration with methodologists and statisticians and introducing more specific reporting guidelines for TJA studies. Neglecting obvious non-proportionality undermines the overall research efforts since causes of non-proportionality, such as possible underlying pathomechanisms, are not considered and discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 1447-1465 ◽  
Author(s):  
DE McGregor ◽  
J Palarea-Albaladejo ◽  
PM Dall ◽  
K Hron ◽  
SFM Chastin

Survival analysis is commonly conducted in medical and public health research to assess the association of an exposure or intervention with a hard end outcome such as mortality. The Cox (proportional hazards) regression model is probably the most popular statistical tool used in this context. However, when the exposure includes compositional covariables (that is, variables representing a relative makeup such as a nutritional or physical activity behaviour composition), some basic assumptions of the Cox regression model and associated significance tests are violated. Compositional variables involve an intrinsic interplay between one another which precludes results and conclusions based on considering them in isolation as is ordinarily done. In this work, we introduce a formulation of the Cox regression model in terms of log-ratio coordinates which suitably deals with the constraints of compositional covariates, facilitates the use of common statistical inference methods, and allows for scientifically meaningful interpretations. We illustrate its practical application to a public health problem: the estimation of the mortality hazard associated with the composition of daily activity behaviour (physical activity, sitting time and sleep) using data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Rongjie Zhang ◽  
Yan Chen ◽  
Ge Zhou ◽  
Baoguo Sun ◽  
Yue Li ◽  
...  

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to identify the molecular mechanism and prognosis-related genes of Jianpi Jiedu decoction in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods. The gene expression data of hepatocellular carcinoma samples and normal tissue samples were downloaded from TCGA database, and the potential targets of drug composition of Jianpi Jiedu decoction were obtained from TCMSP database. The genes were screened out in order to obtain the expression of these target genes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. The differential expression of target genes was analyzed by R software, and the genes related to prognosis were screened by univariate Cox regression analysis. Then, the LASSO model was constructed for risk assessment and survival analysis between different risk groups. At the same time, independent prognostic analysis, GSEA analysis, and prognostic analysis of single gene in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma were performed. Results. 174 compounds of traditional Chinese medicine were screened by TCMSP database, corresponding to 122 potential targets. 39 upregulated genes and 9 downregulated genes were screened out. A total of 20 candidate prognostic related genes were screened out by univariate Cox analysis, of which 12 prognostic genes were involved in the construction of the LASSO regression model. There was a significant difference in survival time between the high-risk group and low-risk group ( p < 0.05 ). Among the genes related to prognosis, the expression levels of CCNB1, NQO1, NUF2, and CHEK1 were high in tumor tissues ( p < 0.05 ). Survival analysis showed that the high expression levels of these four genes were significantly correlated with poor prognosis of HCC ( p < 0.05 ). GSEA analysis showed that the main KEGG enrichment pathways were lysine degradation, folate carbon pool, citrate cycle, and transcription factors. Conclusions. In the study, we found that therapy target genes of Jianpi Jiedu decoction were mainly involved in metabolism and apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma, and there was a close relationship between the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma and the genes of CCNB1, NQO1, NUF2, and CHEK1.


2022 ◽  
Vol 2022 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Dan Chen ◽  
Xiaoting Li ◽  
Hui Li ◽  
Kai Wang ◽  
Xianghua Tian

Background. As the most common hepatic malignancy, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a high incidence; therefore, in this paper, the immune-related genes were sought as biomarkers in liver cancer. Methods. In this study, a differential expression analysis of lncRNA and mRNA in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset between the HCC group and the normal control group was performed. Enrichment analysis was used to screen immune-related differentially expressed genes. Cox regression analysis and survival analysis were used to determine prognostic genes of HCC, whose expression was detected by molecular experiments. Finally, important immune cells were identified by immune cell infiltration and detected by flow cytometry. Results. Compared with the normal group, 1613 differentially expressed mRNAs (DEmRs) and 1237 differentially expressed lncRNAs (DElncRs) were found in HCC. Among them, 143 immune-related DEmRs and 39 immune-related DElncRs were screened out. These genes were mainly related to MAPK cascade, PI3K-AKT signaling pathway, and TGF-beta. Through Cox regression analysis and survival analysis, MMP9, SPP1, HAGLR, LINC02202, and RP11-598F7.3 were finally determined as the potential diagnostic biomarkers for HCC. The gene expression was verified by RT-qPCR and western blot. In addition, CD4 + memory resting T cells and CD8 + T cells were identified as protective factors for overall survival of HCC, and they were found highly expressed in HCC through flow cytometry. Conclusion. The study explored the dysregulation mechanism and potential biomarkers of immune-related genes and further identified the influence of immune cells on the prognosis of HCC, providing a theoretical basis for the prognosis prediction and immunotherapy in HCC patients.


CAUCHY ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Alfensi Faruk ◽  
Endro Setyo Cahyono ◽  
Ning Eliyati

<p class="Abstract">The first birth interval is one of the indicators of women’s fertility rate. Because in most cases the first birth interval contains censored observations, the only appropriate statistical method to handle such data is survival analysis. The main objective of this study is to analyze several socioeconomic and demographic factors that affect the first birth interval in Indonesia using the univariate and multivariate survival analysis, that is Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression model, respectively. The sample is obtained from 2012 Indonesian Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) and consists of 28242 ever married women aged 15-49 at the time of interview. The results show that age at the first birth, women's educational level, husband’s educational level, contraceptive knowledge, wealth index, and employment status are the significant factors affecting the first birth interval in Indonesia.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daojun Lv ◽  
Zanfeng Cao ◽  
Wenjie Li ◽  
Haige Zheng ◽  
Xiangkun Wu ◽  
...  

Background: Biochemical recurrence (BCR) is an indicator of prostate cancer (PCa)-specific recurrence and mortality. However, there is a lack of an effective prediction model that can be used to predict prognosis and to determine the optimal method of treatment for patients with BCR. Hence, the aim of this study was to construct a protein-based nomogram that could predict BCR in PCa.Methods: Protein expression data of PCa patients was obtained from The Cancer Proteome Atlas (TCPA) database. Clinical data on the patients was downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Lasso and Cox regression analyses were conducted to select the most significant prognostic proteins and formulate a protein signature that could predict BCR. Subsequently, Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and Cox regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the performance of the prognostic protein-based signature. Additionally, a nomogram was constructed using multivariate Cox regression analysis.Results: We constructed a 5-protein-based prognostic prediction signature that could be used to identify high-risk and low-risk groups of PCa patients. The survival analysis demonstrated that patients with a higher BCR showed significantly worse survival than those with a lower BCR (p &lt; 0.0001). The time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the signature had an excellent prognostic efficiency for 1, 3, and 5-year BCR (area under curve in training set: 0.691, 0.797, 0.808 and 0.74, 0.739, 0.82 in the test set). Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that this 5-protein signature could be used as independent prognosis marker for PCa patients. Moreover, the concordance index (C-index) confirmed the predictive value of this 5-protein signature in 3, 5, and 10-year BCR overall survival (C-index: 0.764, 95% confidence interval: 0.701–0.827). Finally, we constructed a nomogram to predict BCR of PCa.Conclusions: Our study identified a 5-protein-based signature and constructed a nomogram that could reliably predict BCR. The findings might be of paramount importance for the prediction of PCa prognosis and medical decision-making.Subjects: Bioinformatics, oncology, urology.


2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samar Abd ElHafeez ◽  
Claudia Torino ◽  
Graziella D’Arrigo ◽  
Davide Bolignano ◽  
Fabio Provenzano ◽  
...  

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