We consider two while-alive estimands for recurrent events data \[\begin{align*} \frac{E(N(D \wedge t))}{E(D \wedge t)} \end{align*}\] and the mean of the subject specific events per time-unit \[\begin{align*} E( \frac{N(D \wedge t)}{D \wedge t} ) \end{align*}\] for two treatment-groups in the case of an RCT. For the mean of events per time-unit it has been seen that when the sample size is small one can improve the finite sample properties by employing a transformation such as square or cube-root, and thus consider \[\begin{align*} E( (\frac{N(D \wedge t)}{D \wedge t})^.33 ) \end{align*}\]
data(hfactioncpx12)
dtable(hfactioncpx12,~status)
#>
#> status
#> 0 1 2
#> 617 1391 124
dd <- WA_recurrent(Event(entry,time,status)~treatment+cluster(id),hfactioncpx12,time=2,death.code=2)
summary(dd)
#> While-Alive summaries:
#>
#> RMST, E(min(D,t))
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treatment0 1.859 0.02108 1.817 1.900 0
#> treatment1 1.924 0.01502 1.894 1.953 0
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treatment0] - [treat.... -0.06517 0.02588 -0.1159 -0.01444 0.0118
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treatment0] - [treatment1] = 0
#> mean events, E(N(min(D,t))):
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treatment0 1.572 0.09573 1.384 1.759 1.375e-60
#> treatment1 1.453 0.10315 1.251 1.656 4.376e-45
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treatment0] - [treat.... 0.1185 0.1407 -0.1574 0.3943 0.4
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treatment0] - [treatment1] = 0
#> _______________________________________________________
#> Ratio of means E(N(min(D,t)))/E(min(D,t))
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treatment0 0.8457 0.05264 0.7425 0.9488 4.411e-58
#> treatment1 0.7555 0.05433 0.6490 0.8619 5.963e-44
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treatment0] - [treat.... 0.09022 0.07565 -0.05805 0.2385 0.233
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treatment0] - [treatment1] = 0
#> _______________________________________________________
#> Mean of Events per time-unit E(N(min(D,t))/min(D,t))
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treat0 1.0725 0.1222 0.8331 1.3119 1.645e-18
#> treat1 0.7552 0.0643 0.6291 0.8812 7.508e-32
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treat0] - [treat1] 0.3173 0.1381 0.04675 0.5879 0.02153
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treat0] - [treat1] = 0
dd <- WA_recurrent(Event(entry,time,status)~treatment+cluster(id),hfactioncpx12,time=2,
death.code=2,trans=.333)
summary(dd,type="log")
#> While-Alive summaries, log-scale:
#>
#> RMST, E(min(D,t))
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treatment0 0.6199 0.011340 0.5977 0.6421 0
#> treatment1 0.6543 0.007807 0.6390 0.6696 0
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treatment0] - [treat.... -0.03446 0.01377 -0.06145 -0.007478 0.01231
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treatment0] - [treatment1] = 0
#> mean events, E(N(min(D,t))):
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treatment0 0.4523 0.06090 0.3329 0.5716 1.119e-13
#> treatment1 0.3739 0.07097 0.2348 0.5130 1.376e-07
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treatment0] - [treat.... 0.07835 0.09352 -0.1049 0.2616 0.4022
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treatment0] - [treatment1] = 0
#> _______________________________________________________
#> Ratio of means E(N(min(D,t)))/E(min(D,t))
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treatment0 -0.1676 0.06224 -0.2896 -0.04563 7.081e-03
#> treatment1 -0.2804 0.07192 -0.4214 -0.13947 9.651e-05
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treatment0] - [treat.... 0.1128 0.09511 -0.07361 0.2992 0.2356
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treatment0] - [treatment1] = 0
#> _______________________________________________________
#> Mean of Events per time-unit E(N(min(D,t))/min(D,t))
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> treat0 -0.3833 0.04939 -0.4801 -0.2865 8.487e-15
#> treat1 -0.5380 0.05666 -0.6491 -0.4270 2.191e-21
#>
#> Estimate Std.Err 2.5% 97.5% P-value
#> [treat0] - [treat1] 0.1548 0.07517 0.007459 0.3021 0.03948
#>
#> Null Hypothesis:
#> [treat0] - [treat1] = 0We see that the ratio of means are not very different, but that the subject specific mean of events per time-unit shows that those on the active treatment has fewer events per time-unit on average.
The number of events can be generalized in various ways by using
other outcomes than \(N(D \wedge t)\),
for example,
\[\begin{align*}
\tilde N(D \wedge t) = \int_0^t I(D \geq s) M(s) dN(s) + \sum_j M_j
I(D \leq t,\epsilon=j) )
\end{align*}\] where \(M(s)\)
are the marks related to \(N(s)\) and
are \(M_j\) marks associated with the
different causes of the terminal event. This provides an extension of
the weighted composite outcomes measure of Mao & Lin (2022).
The marks (or here weights) can be stochastic if we are couting hosptial expenses, for example, and is vector on the data-frame. The marks for the event times (defined through the causes) will then be used.
Here weighting death with weight 2 and otherwise couting the recurrent of events as before (with weight 1)
hfactioncpx12$marks <- runif(nrow(hfactioncpx12))
##ddmg <- WA_recurrent(Event(entry,time,status)~treatment+cluster(id),hfactioncpx12,time=2,
##cause=1:2,death.code=2,marks=hfactioncpx12$marks)
##summary(ddmg)
ddm <- WA_recurrent(Event(entry,time,status)~treatment+cluster(id),hfactioncpx12,time=2,
cause=1:2,death.code=2,marks=hfactioncpx12$status)sessionInfo()
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