Kaplan-Meier

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a non-parametric statistical estimator used to estimate the survival function from lifetime data, producing a step-function curve that shows the probability of surviving — or not experiencing the event of interest — beyond each observed event time; introduced by Edward Kaplan and Paul Meier in a landmark 1958 paper in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Kaplan-Meier estimator handles the censored observations that are ubiquitous in medical follow-up studies — participants who are lost to follow-up, who withdraw, or who have not yet experienced the event by the study's end; the estimator updates the survival probability at each observed event time using the number of events and the number still at risk, incorporating censored observations in the risk set until they are censored; Kaplan-Meier curves are one of the most commonly reproduced figures in clinical research publications, graphically depicting the difference in survival between treatment groups

Examples

• The Kaplan-Meier curves showed clear separation between the two treatment arms from six months after randomisation.
• Median survival estimated from the Kaplan-Meier curve was 18 months in the control arm versus 27 months in the treatment arm.

Synonyms: KM estimator, product-limit estimator