Problem -
A study is conducted to estimate survival in patients following kidney transplant. Key factors that adversely affect success of the transplant include advanced age and diabetes. This study involves 25 participants who are 65 years of age and older, and all have diabetes. Following transplant, each participant is followed for up to 10 years. The following are times to death, in years, or the time to last contact (at which time participant was known to be alive).
Deaths: 1.2, 2.5, 4.3, 5.6, 6.7, 7.3, and 8.1 years
Alive: 3.4, 4.1, 4.2, 5.7, 5.9, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 7.3, 8.2, 8.6, 8.9, 9.4, 9.5, 10, 10, 10, and 10 years
a. Use the life table approach to estimate the survival function.
b. Use the Kaplan-Meier approach to estimate the survival function.
c. Sketch the survival function based on the estimates in (b).