Abstract

Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that develops in the bone marrow. It is assumed that in most cases multiple myeloma develops in association with several medical factors acting together, although the leading cause of the disease has not yet been identified. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the factors to measure multiple myeloma patients' survival time. For this, we employ a copula that provides a convenient way to construct statistical models for multivariate dependence. Through an approach via copulas, we find the most influential medical factors that affect the survival time. Some goodness-of-fit tests are also performed to check the adequacy of the copula chosen for the best combination of the survival time and the medical factors. Using the Monte Carlo simulation technique with the copula, we re-sample survival times from which the anticipated life span of a patient with the disease is calculated.

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