R help - Nov 2012 - survreg & gompertz

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been answered already, but I couldn't find it in the 
archives or general internet.

Is it possible to implement the gompertz distribution as 
survreg.distribution to use with survreg of the survival library?
I haven't found anything and recent attempts from my side weren't 
succefull so far.

I know that other packages like 'eha' and 'flexsurv' offer
functions
similar to survreg with gompertz support. However, due to the run-time 
environment were this needs to be running in the end, I can't use these 
packages :(

Same questions for the gompertz-makeham distribution.

Many thanks!

Matthias

On Nov 15, 2012, at 5:38 AM, Matthias Ziehm wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Sorry if this has been answered already, but I couldn't find it in the
archives or general internet.
A Markmail/Rhelp search on:  gompertz survreg  ...brings this link to a reply by
Terry Therneau. Seems to address everything you asked and a bit more

http://markmail.org/search/?q=list%3Aorg.r-project.r-help+gompertz+survreg#query:list%3Aorg.r-project.r-help%20gompertz%20survreg+page:1+mid:6xdlsmo272oa7zkw+state:results

(Depending on how your mailer breaks URLs you may need to paste it back
together.)
> 
> Is it possible to implement the gompertz distribution as
survreg.distribution to use with survreg of the survival library?
> I haven't found anything and recent attempts from my side weren't
succefull so far.
> 
> I know that other packages like 'eha' and 'flexsurv' offer
functions similar to survreg with gompertz support. However, due to the run-time
environment were this needs to be running in the end, I can't use these
packages :(
> 
> Same questions for the gompertz-makeham distribution.
> 
> Many thanks!
> 
> Matthias
-- 

David Winsemius, MD
Alameda, CA, USA

The short answer is "sort of".
Medium is that survreg implements the model framework found in Kalbfeisch and
Prentice,
The statistical analysis of failure time data, chapter, chapter 2.2.  The ime
variable T has
    f(time) ~ X' beta +  sigma * W
where W is an error term from some distribution and f is a fixed function
(usually
identity or log).  Any distribution that can be shoehorned into this framework
can be fit
with survreg.

A longer and more detailed discussion is found in Division of Biostatistics
Technical
Report #53, Mayo Clinic,
"A package for survival analysis in S".   One day I need to update
this and make it a
vignette for the package....

    http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/mayo/research/biostat/techreports.cfm


   Terry Therneau

-------- begin included message -------
Hi all,

Sorry if this has been answered already, but I couldn't find it in the
archives or general internet.

Is it possible to implement the gompertz distribution as
survreg.distribution to use with survreg of the survival library?
I haven't found anything and recent attempts from my side weren't
succefull so far.

I know that other packages like 'eha' and 'flexsurv' offer
functions
similar to survreg with gompertz support. However, due to the run-time
environment were this needs to be running in the end, I can't use these
packages :(

Same questions for the gompertz-makeham distribution.

Many thanks!

Matthias