Maximum Likelihood Estimation in Survival Studies Under Progressive Interval Censoring with Random Removals

ABSTRACT

Censoring occurs commonly in clinical trials. This article investigates a new censoring scheme, namely, Type II progressive interval censoring with random removals to cope with the setting that patients are examined at fixed regular intervals and dropouts may occur during the study period. We discuss the maximum likelihood estimation of the model parameters and derive the corresponding asymptotic variances when survival times are assumed to be Weibull distributed. An example is discussed to illustrate the application of the results under this censoring scheme.

Key Words:

• Asymptotic variance
• Interval censoring
• Maximum likelihood estimation
• Random removals
• Type II progressive censoring
• Weibull distribution