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Assessing the causal effect of organ transplantation on the distribution of residual lifetime.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Vock, DM; Tsiatis, AA; Davidian, M; Laber, EB; Tsuang, WM; Finlen Copeland, CA; Palmer, SM
Published in: Biometrics
December 2013

Because the number of patients waiting for organ transplants exceeds the number of organs available, a better understanding of how transplantation affects the distribution of residual lifetime is needed to improve organ allocation. However, there has been little work to assess the survival benefit of transplantation from a causal perspective. Previous methods developed to estimate the causal effects of treatment in the presence of time-varying confounders have assumed that treatment assignment was independent across patients, which is not true for organ transplantation. We develop a version of G-estimation that accounts for the fact that treatment assignment is not independent across individuals to estimate the parameters of a structural nested failure time model. We derive the asymptotic properties of our estimator and confirm through simulation studies that our method leads to valid inference of the effect of transplantation on the distribution of residual lifetime. We demonstrate our method on the survival benefit of lung transplantation using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Biometrics

DOI

EISSN

1541-0420

Publication Date

December 2013

Volume

69

Issue

4

Start / End Page

820 / 829

Location

England

Related Subject Headings

  • Young Adult
  • Survival Rate
  • Statistics & Probability
  • Outcome Assessment, Health Care
  • Middle Aged
  • Lung Transplantation
  • Lung Diseases
  • Life Expectancy
  • Internationality
  • Humans
 

Citation

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Vock, D. M., Tsiatis, A. A., Davidian, M., Laber, E. B., Tsuang, W. M., Finlen Copeland, C. A., & Palmer, S. M. (2013). Assessing the causal effect of organ transplantation on the distribution of residual lifetime. Biometrics, 69(4), 820–829. https://doi.org/10.1111/biom.12084
Vock, David M., Anastasios A. Tsiatis, Marie Davidian, Eric B. Laber, Wayne M. Tsuang, C Ashley Finlen Copeland, and Scott M. Palmer. “Assessing the causal effect of organ transplantation on the distribution of residual lifetime.Biometrics 69, no. 4 (December 2013): 820–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/biom.12084.
Vock DM, Tsiatis AA, Davidian M, Laber EB, Tsuang WM, Finlen Copeland CA, et al. Assessing the causal effect of organ transplantation on the distribution of residual lifetime. Biometrics. 2013 Dec;69(4):820–9.
Vock, David M., et al. “Assessing the causal effect of organ transplantation on the distribution of residual lifetime.Biometrics, vol. 69, no. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 820–29. Pubmed, doi:10.1111/biom.12084.
Vock DM, Tsiatis AA, Davidian M, Laber EB, Tsuang WM, Finlen Copeland CA, Palmer SM. Assessing the causal effect of organ transplantation on the distribution of residual lifetime. Biometrics. 2013 Dec;69(4):820–829.
Journal cover image

Published In

Biometrics

DOI

EISSN

1541-0420

Publication Date

December 2013

Volume

69

Issue

4

Start / End Page

820 / 829

Location

England

Related Subject Headings

  • Young Adult
  • Survival Rate
  • Statistics & Probability
  • Outcome Assessment, Health Care
  • Middle Aged
  • Lung Transplantation
  • Lung Diseases
  • Life Expectancy
  • Internationality
  • Humans