Simple estimation procedures for regression analysis of interval-censored failure time data under the proportional hazards model

Interval-censored failure time data occur in many fields including epidemiological and medical studies as well as financial and sociological studies, and many authors have investigated their analysis (Sun, The statistical analysis of interval-censored failure time data, 2006; Zhang, Stat Modeling 9:321–343, 2009). In particular, a number of procedures have been developed for regression analysis of interval-censored data arising from the proportional hazards model (Finkelstein, Biometrics 42:845–854, 1986; Huang, Ann Stat 24:540–568, 1996; Pan, Biometrics 56:199–203, 2000). For most of these procedures, however, one drawback is that they involve estimation of both regression parameters and baseline cumulative hazard function. In this paper, we propose two simple estimation approaches that do not need estimation of the baseline cumulative hazard function. The asymptotic properties of the resulting estimates are given, and an extensive simulation study is conducted and indicates that they work well for practical situations.