Diagnostic checks in mixture cure models with interval-censoring.

Models for interval-censored survival data presenting a fraction of "cure" or "immune" patients have recently been proposed in the literature, particularly extending the mixture cure model to interval-censored data. However, little is known about the goodness-of-fit of such models. In a mixture cure model, the survival distribution of the entire population is improper and expressed in terms of the survival distribution of uncured individuals, i.

Variable selection in a flexible parametric mixture cure model with interval-censored data.

In standard survival analysis, it is generally assumed that every individual will experience someday the event of interest. However, this is not always the case, as some individuals may not be susceptible to this event. Also, in medical studies, it is frequent that patients come to scheduled interviews and that the time to the event is only known to occur between two visits.