Interpretation of conventional survival analysis and competing risk analysis: An example of hypertension and prostate cancer

Most clinical studies use conventional methods for survival analysis and calculate the risk of the event of interest, however, it is important to understand that the study population is also at risk of competing events, for example death from other causes. Moreover, the risk of competing events may be dependent on the participants' characteristics. Whether competing risks are taken into account or not, is of major importance when interpreting study results.Here, we use a practical example to elucidate the interpretational differences of absolute risk estimates obtained with both conventional methods for survival analysis and competing risk analysis. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.