[R-pkgs] NEW release of FRAILTYPACK

[Rondeau Virginie]

Dear All,

We are happy to announce, after a long gestation, the release of the new 
version of FRAILTYPACK (version 2.2-9.5) which is now available from 
CRAN. The package fit general frailty models using penalized likelihood 
estimation, for clustered or recurrent events.

For instance :

--  ADDITIVE FRAILTY MODELS for proportional hazards models with two 
correlated random effects (intercept random effect with random slope):

  
fitAdditive<-additivePenal(Surv(t1,t2,event)~cluster(group)+var1+slope(var1), 

  correlation=TRUE,data=dataAdditive,n.knots=8,kappa1=10000)


--  NESTED FRAILTY MODELS for hierarchically clustered data (with 2 
levels of clustering) by including two random effects:

  
fitnested<-frailtyPenal(Surv(t1,t2,event)~cluster(group)+subcluster(subgroup), 

  data=dataNested,n.knots=8,kappa1=50000)

-- JOINT FRAILTY MODELS in the context of joint modelling of recurrent 
events with terminal event:

  fitJoint<-frailtyPenal(Surv(time.entry,time.end,status)~cluster(id)+
    
terminal(status.terminal),formula.terminalEvent=~status.terminal,data=dataJoint 

  ,n.knots=12,kappa1=1,kappa2=1,joint=TRUE,recurrentAG=TRUE)

We included several examples.



REFERENCES

[1] Rondeau V, Michiels S, Liquet B, Pignon JP. Investigating trial and 
treatment hete
rogeneity in an individual patient data meta-analysis of survival data 
by means of the
penalized maximum likelihood approach. Statistics in Medicine 2008 ;27 
:1894-1910.

[2] Rondeau V, Mathoulin-Pelissier S, Jacqmin-Gadda H, Brouste V, 
Soubeyran P. Joint
frailty models for recurring events and death using maximum penalized 
likelihood es-
timation : application on cancer events. Biostatistics 2007 ; 8(4),708-721.

[3] Rondeau V, Filleul L, Joly P. Nested frailty models using maximum 
penalized likelihood estimation. Statistics in Medicine. 2006 ;25(23) : 
4036-4052.

[4] Rondeau V, Gonzalez JR. FRAILTYPACK : a computer program for the 
analysis of
correlated failure time data using penalized likelihood estimation. 
Computer Methods
and Statistics in Biomedicine, 2005 ;80,154-164.

[5] Rondeau V, Joly P, Commenges D. Maximum penalized likelihood 
estimation in frailty
models. Lifetime Data Analysis, 2003 ;9 :139-153.

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________
Virginie RONDEAU, Ph.D. - Chercheur INSERM (CR1)

INSERM U897 (Biostatistique),ISPED
Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux2,
146 rue Léo Saignat,
33076 Bordeaux Cedex, France.

email   : Virginie.Rondeau at isped.u-bordeaux2.fr

web site : http://biostat.isped.u-bordeaux2.fr/
Phone   : (33) 557 574 531
Fax     : (33) 556 240 081