Biostatistics For Dummies

Chapter 22

Summarizing and Graphing Survival Data

In This Chapter

Beginning with the basics of survival data

Trying life tables and the Kaplan-Meier method

Applying some handy guidelines for survival analysis

Using survival data for even more calculations

This chapter describes statistical techniques that deal with a special kind of numerical data — the interval from some starting point in time (such as a diagnosis date or procedure date) to the first (or only) occurrence of some particular kind of endpoint event. Because these techniques are so often applied to situations where the endpoint event is death, we usually call the use of these techniques survival analysis, even when the endpoint is something less drastic than death, like relapse, or even something desirable — for example, time to remission of cancer or time to recovery. Throughout this chapter, I use terms and examples that imply that the endpoint is death (like survival time instead of time to event), but everything I say also applies to other kinds of endpoints.

You may wonder why you need a special kind of analysis ...