Title of the Paper

Nonparametric Estimation from Incomplete Observations.

Survival Curve
Kaplan-Meier Survival Curve Estimation Copyright
@Statistical.Solutions

Features

  • One of the most cited statistical papers of all time
  • As of today, 66638 citations listed on Google Scholar
  • Published in 1958
  • Authors: by Kaplan and Meier, two American statisticians

Ideas

💡 The scientific article introduces the Kaplan-Meier estimator, a nonparametric method for estimating survival functions from incomplete data.

💡 This method is used when observations analysis are censored : when subjects drop out from the study early or never experience the event of interest by the time the study ends.

💡 Brilliant work about censored observations.

I cannot believe that it’s been 25 years since I first taught a survival analysis (biomedical research)/reliability (engineering) course!

I had the pleasure of discussing with Sir Cox during a statistical conference about 15 years ago. He is one of those people who leaves an impression that stays with you forever.

Reference

Kaplan, E. L., and Paul Meier. “Nonparametric Estimation from Incomplete Observations.” Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 53, no. 282, 1958, pp. 457–81. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2281868.