The Use of Generalized Gamma-Polynomial Approximation for Hazard Functions

Abstract

We introduce a simple methodology, so-called generalized gamma-polynomial approximation, based on moment-matching technique to approximate survival and hazard functions in the context of parametric survival analysis. We use the generalized gamma-polynomial approximation to approximate the density and distribution functions of convolutions and finite mixtures of random variables, from which the approximated survival and hazard functions are obtained. This technique provides very accurate approximation to the target functions, in addition to their being computationally efficient and easy to implement. In addition, the generalized gamma-polynomial approximations are very stable in middle range of the target distributions, whereas saddlepoint approximations are often unstable in a neighborhood of the mean.