Advances in medical statistics arising from the AIDS epidemic

Many statisticians have contributed to studies of the HIV epidemic and prog ression to AIDS. They have developed new statistical methodology, where nee ded, to address HIV-related issues. The transfer of methods from one area t o another often involves a substantial delay. This paper points to methods that were developed in the HIV context and have either already found applic ations in other areas of medical research or have the potential for such ap plications, with the hope that this will promote a speedier Transfer of the research methods. Among the new tools that HIV studies have placed firmly into the pool of statistical methods for medical research are the methods o f back-calculation, methods for the analysis of retrospective ascertainment data and methods of analysis for the combined data from clinical trials an d associated longitudinal studies. Notions that have been stimulated substa ntially are use of surrogate endpoints in clinical trials and screening blo od products by the use of pooled serum samples. Research activity in many o ther areas has been boosted substantially through contributions motivated b y HIV/AIDS studies. Noteworthy examples are analyses for doubly-censored li fetime data and methods for assessing vaccines for transmissible diseases.