Generalized log‐rank test for mixed interval‐censored failure time data

Abstract

Abstract This paper considers the problem of non‐parametric treatment comparisons when mixed interval‐censored failure time data are available, which often occurs in clinical trials and epidemiological studies. By mixed interval‐censored data, we mean that the survival time of interest is observed to belong to an interval or to be right‐censored. For the problem, we generalize the most commonly used log‐rank test for right‐censored survival data. Numerical studies are conducted and reported to evaluate and compare the proposed test with the existing method, which indicate that the presented method works well. We apply the method to a data set arising from an AIDS cohort study, that motivated the study. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.