Nonparametric tests for cause specific hazard rates with censored data for competing risks among several groups

For the competing risk setting where the lifetime data are due to one of several distinct and exclusive causes, comparison of cause-specific hazard rates is of interest to researchers. In this paper we survey existing methods for related tests and provide a new test for a common overall rate for all causes and groups. Tests given in the literature for checking for a common rate for causes and a common rate for the groups are shown to be in the same framework as the proposed test for common overall rate. Asymptotics are shown to follow a common theme for each test. An extensive numerical and graphical investigation and an example are presented to substantiate the proposed methods. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.