ABSTRACT
In haemodialysis patients, vascular access type is of paramount importance. Although recent studies have found that central venous catheter is often associated with poor outcomes and switching to arteriovenous fistula is beneficial, studies have not fully elucidated how the effect of switching of access on outcomes changes over time for patients on dialysis and whether the effect depends on switching time. In this paper, we characterise the switching access type effect on outcomes for haemodialysis patients. This is achieved by using a new class of multiple-index varying-coefficient (MIVC) models. We develop a new estimation procedure for MIVC models based on local linear, profile least-square method and Cholesky decomposition. Monte Carlo simulation studies show excellent finite sample performance. Finally, we analyse the dialysis data using our method.
2000 AMS SUBJECT CLASSIFICATIONS:
Acknowledgements
We thank Fresenius Medical Care North America for providing the identified data and their collaboration in this analysis.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.