The analysis of competing events like cause-specific mortality-beware of the Kaplan-Meier method

作者：Verduijn Marion^*; Grootendorst Diana C; Dekker Friedo W; Jager Kitty J; le Cessie Saskia

来源：Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, 2011, 26(1): 56-61.

DOI：10.1093/ndt/gfq661

• cardiovascular mortality
• epidemiology
• Kaplan-Meier
• survival analysis

Kaplan-Meier analysis is a popular method used for analysing time-to-event data. In case of competing event analyses such as that of cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular mortality, however, the Kaplan-Meier method profoundly overestimates the cumulative mortality probabilities for each of the separate causes of death. This article provides an introduction to the problem of competing events in Kaplan-Meier analysis. It explains cumulative incidence competing risk analysis and demonstrates on a cohort of elderly dialysis patients that, in contrast to the Kaplan-Meier method, application of this method yields unbiased estimates of the cumulative probabilities for cause-specific mortality.

• 出版日期2011-1