Graphical Exploratory Analysis of Survival Data

Abstract

We present dynamic and static graphs for exploratory analysis of survival data. These graphs are based on a smooth semiparametric estimate of the survival probability as a function of time and a covariate. We overlay a contour plot of the conditional survival distribution on a scatterplot of time and covariate. This is augmented by plots of the estimated survival function at particular covariate values and the receiver operating characteristic curve at particular time points. In our XLisp-Stat implementation these plots are linked and the time and covariate values for the augmenting plots can be varied dynamically. The methods are illustrated on data from a clinical study of liver disease.