8 - COM–Poisson Cure Rate Models

Summary

Survival analysis studies the time-to-event for various subjects. In the biological and medical sciences, interest can focus on patient time to death due to various (competing) causes. In engineering reliability, one may study the time to component failure due to analogous factors or stimuli. Cure rate models serve a particular interest because, with advancements in associated disciplines, subjects can be viewed as “cured meaning that they do not show any recurrence of a disease (in biomedical studies) or subsequent manufacturing error (in engineering) following a treatment. This chapter generalizes two classical cure-rate models via the development of a COM–Poisson cure rate model. The chapter first describes the COM–Poisson cure rate model framework and general notation, and then details the model framework assuming right and interval censoring, respectively. The chapter then describes the broader destructive COM–Poisson cure rate model which allows for the number of competing risks to diminish via damage or eradication. Finally, the chapter details the various lifetime distributions considered in the literature to date for COM–Poisson-based cure rate modeling.