msSurv: An R Package for Nonparametric Estimation of Multistate Models

Abstract

We present an R package, msSurv, to calculate the marginal (that is, not conditional on any covariates) state occupation probabilities, the state entry and exit time distributions, and the marginal integrated transition hazard for a general, possibly non-Markov, multistate system under left-truncation and right censoring. For a Markov model, msSurv also calculates and returns the transition probability matrix between any two states. Dependent censoring is handled via modeling the censoring hazard through observable covariates. Pointwise confidence intervals for the above mentioned quantities are obtained and returned for independent censoring from closed-form variance estimators and for dependent censoring using the bootstrap.