Qing Yang recently published an article entitled "Sample size determination for jointly testing a cause-specific hazard and the all-cause hazard in the presence of competing risks" in Statistics in Medicine. Co-authors include experts from University of California, Los Angeles and Hong Kong University.

Abstract

This article considers sample size determination for jointly testing a cause-specific hazard and the all-cause hazard for competing risks data. The cause-specific hazard and the all-cause hazard jointly characterize important study end points such as the disease-specific survival and overall survival, which are commonly used as coprimary end points in clinical trials. Specifically, we derive sample size calculation methods for two-group comparisons based on an asymptotic chi-square joint test and a maximum joint test of the aforementioned quantities, taking into account censoring due to lost to follow-up as well as staggered entry and administrative censoring. We illustrate the application of the proposed methods using the Die Duetsche Diabetes Dialyse Studies clinical trial. An R package "powerCompRick" has been developed and made available at the CRAN R library.