0 Asymptomatic
1 Symptomatic, fully ambulatory
2 Symptomatic, in bed <50%
3 Symptomatic, in bed >50%
4 Bedridden
5 Dead
Survival Analysis
• It is the probability of remaining alive for a specific length of time.
• point of interest : prognosis of disease e.g.
– 5 year survival
e.g. 5 year survival for AML is 0.19, indicate 19% of patients with AML will
survive for 5 years after diagnosis
• In simple terms survival (S) is mathematically given by the formula;
S = A-D/A
A = number of newly diagnosed patients under observation
D= number of deaths observed in a specified period
Survival Analysis
• Subjects are said to be censored
– if they are lost to follow up – drop out of the study,
– if the study ends before they die or have an outcome of
interest.
• They are counted as alive or disease-free for the time they
were enrolled in the study.
• In simple words, some important information required to make
a calculation is not available to us. i.e. censored.
Need for Survival Analysis
• Investigators frequently must analyze data before all patients have
died; otherwise, it may be many years before they know which
treatment is better.
• Survival analysis gives patients credit for how long they have been
in the study, even if the outcome has not yet occurred.
• The Kaplan–Meier procedure is the most commonly used method
to illustrate survival curves.
• Life table or actuarial methods were developed to show survival
curves; although surpassed by Kaplan–Meier curves
What is Survival Analysis
• Statistical methods for analyzing longitudinal data on the
occurrence of events.
• Events may include death, injury, onset of illness, recovery from
illness (binary variables) or transition above or below the clinical
threshold of a meaningful continuous variable (e.g. CD4 counts).
• Accommodates data from randomized clinical trial or cohort
study design.
Objectives of survival analysis
- Estimate time-to-event for a group of individuals, such as time
until second heart-attack for a group of MI patients.
- To compare time-to-event between two or more groups, such
as treated vs. placebo MI patients in a randomized controlled
trial.
- To assess the relationship of co-variables to time-to event,
such as: does weight, insulin resistance, or cholesterol
influence survival time of MI patients?
Survival Curves
- Kaplan-Meir Analysis
- On vertical axis estimated probability of survival
- Horizontal axis period of time following the beginning of
observation
- No one die = probability of surviving = 1
- When a patient dies = probability of surviving <1
- When a patients are lost from the study at any time and for any
other reason other than outcome = Censored = no longer counted in
the denominatior
Interpreting Survival Curves
- Vertical axis represents estimated probability of surviving for
member of a hypothetical cohort, not the percent surviving for
an actual cohort
- Points on a survival curve are the best estimate, for a given set
of data, of the probability of survival for members of a cohort.
However, the precision of these estimates depends, as do all
observations of samples, on the number of patients whom the
estimate is based.
Kaplan-Meier Product limit
method
46
Limitations of Kaplan-Meier
57
What does cox model do