A computer program for estimating survival functions from the life table

✍ Scribed by Terry L Smith; Jane E Putman; Edmund A Gehan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1970
• Weight: 262 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0010-468X
• DOI: 10.1016/0010-468x(70)90014-0

✦ Synopsis

A computer program for estimating survival functions from the life table, Computer Programs in Biomedicine 1 (1969) 00-00.

This computer program provides a characterization of a set of survival time data in terms of three survival functions, each of which illustrates a different aspect of the data. These functions are: (1) the survivorship function, c'dr(t), which is the probability that an individual survives longer than t; (2) the hazard function, Mt), which is the probability that an individual dies in a short interval of time (At), given survival to time t; (3) the probability density function, fit), which is the limit of the probability an individual dies in the short interval t to (t+ At) per unit width (At).

The standard errors of these functions are also given. These functions may be plotted as part of the program output at the option of the user.

An estimate is also given of median remaining life time, which is especially useful in sets of data in which not all individuals have died by the end of the last interval.

Data are entered in the form of a life table, and may include censored observations (i.e. individuals alive at the time of analysis or lost to follow-up).

A complete discussion of the problem of estimating survival functions from the life table is given in Gehan [ 1], and the same methods of estimation are used in the program.