LEUKEMIA DATA

(used in example 5.1 and in exercises 3.1, 3.4, 3.7, and 3.9)

 

Background:

Forty-two children with acute leukemia responded to a primary treatment in the sense that most or all signs of the disease in the bone marrow disappeared, that is, the patients entered into partial or complete remission. The children were then randomized to remission maintenance therapy with the drug 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) or placebo. The remission length, that is, the time from remission to relapse (when the disease resumed), is the survival time of interest. The patients who were still in remission at the conclusion of the study provide right-censored survival times.

 

Coding:

treat:  treatment (1 = placebo; 2 = 6-MP)

time:  remission length in weeks

status:  indicator of relapse (1) or censoring (0)

 

Source:

Freireich, E. J., E. Gehan, E. Frei, L. R. Schroeder, I. J. Wolman, R. Anbari, E. O. Burgert, S. D. Mills, D. Pinkel, O. S. Selawry, J. H. Moon, B. R. Gendel, C. L. Spurr, R. Storrs, F. Haurani, B. Hoogstraten, and S. Lee (1963). The effect of 6-mercaptopurine on the duration of steroid-induced remissions in acute leukemia: A model for evaluation of other potentially useful therapy. Blood 21, 699-716.