Comparing survival curves using an easy to interpret statistic

Kenneth R. Hess

Research output: Contribution to journalShort surveypeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Here, I describe a statistic for comparing two survival curves that has a clear and obvious meaning and has a long history in biostatistics. Suppose we are comparing survival times associated with two treatments A and B. The statistic operates in such a way that if it takes on the value 0.95, then the interpretation is that a randomly chosen patient treated with A has a 95% chance of surviving longer than a randomly chosen patient treated with B. This statistic was first described in the 1950s, and was generalized in the 1960s to work with right-censored survival times. It is a useful and convenient measure for assessing differences between survival curves. Software for computing the statistic is readily available on the Internet.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4912-4913
Number of pages2
JournalClinical Cancer Research
Volume16
Issue number20
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 15 2010

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

MD Anderson CCSG core facilities

  • Biostatistics Resource Group

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