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st: left-truncation of entry in survival analysis
Dear Statalist readers,
Reports of survival analysis which use age as the time scale rather than
time-on-study often 'adjust for delayed entry'. In Stata this is achieved by:
stset age, fail(died) enter(ageatentry)
(see recent e-mail from Dawn Teele, or reply to st: streg from
[email protected] on 19th September 2002.)
However, a model fitted with the above stset gives exactly the same answer
as one with
stset timeonstudy, fail(died)
provided timeonstudy=age-ageatentry (as it normally would, but might not
exactly depending how variables were calculated) and the models are exactly
the same. In the second model it is usual to adjust or stratify on age,
while in the first it isn't as age is taken into account, supposedly, so
researchers may not have realised the equivalence.
So, am I missing something, or are advocates of the first model deluding
themselves? Can left truncation be ignored with age as the timescale?
Thanks
Sue
Sue Chinn
Professor of Medical Statistics
Division of Asthma, Allergy and Lung Biology
King's College London
5th Floor Capital House
42 Weston Street
London SE1 3QD
tel no. 020 7848 6607
fax no. 020 7848 6605
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