An alternative to the product limit method: the multistate approach

A multistate alternative to the product limit method is developed. The approach proposed takes into account the censored and uncensored survivorship functions separately. The methods are useful in situations of informative censoring. This approach can be used for unequal probabilities of death for uncensored and censored states. The product limit estimates can be shown to be a special case of the proposed alternative if probabilities of death for uncensored and censored states are assumed to be equal.