In this presentation we propose a flexible approach
using P-splines to allow for non-linear relationships between
continuous predictors and survival in the multi-state framework. To
obtain immediately interpretable results we construct smooth hazard
ratio curves with confidence intervals to describe the relation between
the continuous predictor and risk when a specific value is taken as the
reference. These methods are illustrated on a database on breast cancer
using a progressive three-state semi-Markov model. |