Abstract
This brief review presents a nonmathematical description of the methods used to describe the outcome of patient groups when the time to an event such as death or disease recurrence is of interest. Calculation of the product-limit, actuarial and relative survival curves is described and the underlying principles are explained. Two statistical tests frequently used in comparing survival curves (the generalized Wilcoxon and the log-rank or Mantel test) are described and an example of their use is given.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- CUTLER S. J., EDERER F. Maximum utilization of the life table method in analyzing survival. J Chronic Dis. 1958 Dec;8(6):699–712. doi: 10.1016/0021-9681(58)90126-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- EDERER F., AXTELL L. M., CUTLER S. J. The relative survival rate: a statistical methodology. Natl Cancer Inst Monogr. 1961 Sep;6:101–121. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Enstrom J. E., Austin D. F. Interpreting cancer survival rates. Science. 1977 Mar 4;195(4281):847–851. doi: 10.1126/science.841309. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Hakulinen T. On long-term relative survival rates. J Chronic Dis. 1977 Jul;30(7):431–443. doi: 10.1016/0021-9681(77)90036-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Irwin A. C. Survivorship: the estimation and interpretation of survival experience. Can Med Assoc J. 1971 Sep 4;105(5):489–497. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Mantel N. Evaluation of survival data and two new rank order statistics arising in its consideration. Cancer Chemother Rep. 1966 Mar;50(3):163–170. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Peto R., Pike M. C., Armitage P., Breslow N. E., Cox D. R., Howard S. V., Mantel N., McPherson K., Peto J., Smith P. G. Design and analysis of randomized clinical trials requiring prolonged observation of each patient. II. analysis and examples. Br J Cancer. 1977 Jan;35(1):1–39. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1977.1. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]