Statistics262IntermediateBiostatistics-.ppt

Statistics 262: Intermediate Biostatistics More on Kaplan-Meier estimator of S(t)(“product-limit estimator” or “KM estimator”) When there are no censored data, the KM estimator is simple and intuitive: Estimated S(t)= proportion of observations with failure times t. For example, if you are following 10 patients, and 3 of them die by the end of the first year, then your best estimate of S(1 year) = 70%. When there are censored data, KM provides estimate of S(t) that takes censoring into account (see last week’s lecture). If the censored observation had actually been a failure: S(1 year)=4/5*