  Competing risks data with discrete lifetime comes up in practice. However,
only limited literature exists for such data. In this paper, we propose a
non-parametric test based on U-statistics for testing independence of time to
failure and cause of failure of competing risks data when the lifetime is a
discrete random variable. Asymptotic distribution of the proposed test
statistic is derived. An extensive Monte Carlo simulation study is conducted to
assess the finite sample performance of the proposed test. The flexibility of
the testing procedure is illustrated using real data sets on oral cancer
patients and drug exposed pregnancies.
