Dear all, The next seminar in our series of statistics talks for people interested in quantitative methods in biology and medicine will take place Thursday 4 October at 11h00 in the Salle Delachaux, Biopôle 2 (first floor), route de la Corniche 10, Lausanne (metro: M2, Vennes). The speaker will be Jan Beyersmann who will talk about "Competing risks and simulation". Abstract: The analysis of survival or time-to-event data is one of the most common applications of advanced statistical techniques in medical research and beyond. Data are typically incomplete as a consequence of limited observation periods. Therefore, survival analysis is based on hazards. Hazard-based techniques also allow for analysing competing risks, i.e., time-to-first-event and type-of-first-event. A common example from cancer research is relapse-free survival, which is the time until relapse or death, whatever comes first. A competing risks analysis distinguishes between these two event types, but the presence of more than one event-specific hazard poses a challenge both in theory and practice. We discuss the use of simulation to understand and analyse competing risks data, interpret the analyses and plan studies with competing risks outcomes. Reference: Beyersmann, J., Allignol, A., and Schumacher, M. (2012) Competing Risks and Multistate Models with R. Springer, New York You can find more information about the forum on our web page at http://moodle.unil.ch/course/view.php?id=2729 The next seminar will take place on 18 October in Dorigny. The speakers will be Darlene Goldstein and Alix Leboucq, from the EPFL. Hope to see you there ! Frédéric (for the organizers: Jérôme Goudet, Valentin Rousson, Frédéric Schütz)