Generalizing the Frailty Assumptions in Survival Analysis

Abstract: This paper studies Cox's regression hazard model with an unobservable random frailty where no specific distribution is postulated for the frailty variable, and the marginal lifetime distribution allows both parametric and non-parametric models. Laplace's approximation method and gradient search on smooth manifolds embedded in Euclidean space are applied, and a non-iterative profile likelihood optimization method is proposed for estimating the regression coefficients. The proposed method is compared with the Expected-Maximization method developed based on a gamma frailty assumption, and also in the case when the frailty model is misspecified.