Research Article on Incubation period of AIDS in India.

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

I am forwarding research paper entitled “Nonparametric Estimation of Incubation

Period of AIDS with Left Truncation and Right Censoring.”

Journal of Data Science 5(2007), 289-296

In this paper an attempt is made to estimate Incubation period of AIDS patients

from India. The abstract of the paper is as follows

In the natural history of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type-1 (HIV-1) infection,

many studies included the participants who were seropositive at time of

enrollment. Estimation of the unknown times since exposure to HIV-1 in the

prevalent cohorts is of primary importance for estimation of the incubation

period of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). To estimate incubation

period of AIDS we used prior distribution of incubation times, based on a

external data as suggested by Bacchetti and Jewell (1991, Biometrics,

47,947-960). In the present study, our estimate was nonparametric based on a

method proposed by Wang, Jewell and Tsai (1986, ls of Statistics, 14,

1597-1605).

The median time from seroconversion to the development of AIDS was 57 months

(95% CI: 53-61). Kaplan-Meier product limit estimates of AIDS-free survival

adjusting for truncation at 5, 6 and 7 years of after seroconversion were 34%,

20% and 12% respectively.

I wish that this article will provide valuable information on Disease

progression of AIDS patients from India that were infected during early phase of

epidemic.

The full text of the article is accessable on the following url

http://www.sinica.edu.tw/~jds/JDS-312.pdf

Thanking you

With personal regards

Dr. Onkar Shivraj Swami

Department of Statistics

University of Delhi, Delhi-110007.

AND

Survey Division, Department Of Statistical Analysis And Computer Services.

Reserve Bank Of India

Bandra (E), MumbaI – 400051.

e-mail: <swami_du@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear Moderator,

/message/7993

At last we have a study which gives us a sense of the time taken for an Indian

to progress from seroconversion to the development of AIDS. Most people in

clinical medicine have long suspected that the time taken to progress to AIDS is

shorter in India than in the west and this study substantiates that.

Dr. Swami and team are to be congratulated. However, my reservation is that

this study recruited patients only from Vellore, Tamil Nadu, and hence may not

be representative of the rest of India.

Sincerely,

Deepak Batura

e-mail: <d_batura@...>