EFFICIENT ANALYSIS OF WEIBULL SURVIVAL DATA FROM EXPERIMENTS ON HETEROGENEOUS PATIENT POPULATIONS

An efficient method is presented for analyses of death rates in one-way or cross-classified experiments where expected survival time for a patient at time of entry on trial is a function of observable covariates. The survival-time distribution used is a Weibull form of Cox's (1972) model. The analysis proceeds in two steps. In the first, goodness of fit of the model is checked, inefficient estimates of the parameters are obtained, and survival times adjusted for the entry covariates are calculated. In the second, efficient estimates and tests for the rate parameters are obtained. These can easily be calculated using hand or desk equipment. Reorganized data sets can be analyzed without repetition of step one, thereby reducing the computational load to hand level and facilitating exploratory data analysis.