Estimating the marginal survival function in the presence of time dependent covariates

We propose a new estimator of the marginal (overall) survival function of failure times that is in the class of survival function estimators proposed by Robins (Proceedings of the American Statistical Association-Biopharmaceutical Section, 1993, p. 24). These estimators are appropriate when, in addition to (right-censored) failure times, we also observe covariates for each individual that affect both the hazard of failure and the hazard of being censored. The observed data are re-weighted at each failure time t according to Aalen's linear model of the cumulative hazard for being censored at some time greater than or equal to t given each individual's covariates; then, a product-limit estimator is calculated using the weighted data. When covariates have no effect on censoring times, our estimator reduces to the ordinary Kaplan-Meier estimator. An expression for its asymptotic variance formula is obtained using martingale techniques. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.