Simulating Oncology Trials using an Illness-Death Model

Based on the illness-death model a large number of clinical trials with oncology endpoints progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) can be simulated, see Meller, Beyersmann and Rufibach (2019) . The simulation set-up allows for random and event-driven censoring, an arbitrary number of treatment arms, staggered study entry and drop-out. Exponentially, Weibull and piecewise exponentially distributed survival times can be generated. The correlation between PFS and OS can be calculated.