survival (version 2.38-3)

lines.survfit: Add Lines or Points to a Survival Plot

Description

Often used to add the expected survival curve(s) to a Kaplan-Meier plot generated with plot.survfit.

Usage

## S3 method for class 'survfit':
lines(x, type="s", mark=3, col=1, lty=1,
        lwd=1, cex=1, mark.time=TRUE, 
	xscale=1,  firstx=0, firsty=1, xmax, fun, conf.int=FALSE,  ...)
## S3 method for class 'survexp':
lines(x, type="l", ...)
## S3 method for class 'survfit':
points(x, xscale, xmax, fun, ...)

Arguments

x

a survival object, generated from the survfit or survexp functions.

type

the line type, as described in lines. The default is a step function for survfit objects, and a connected line for survexp objects. All other arguments for lines.survexp are identical to those for

mark, col, lty, lwd, cex

vectors giving the mark symbol, color, line type, line width and character size for the added curves.

...

other graphical parameters

mark.time

controls the labeling of the curves. If FALSE, no labeling is done. If TRUE, then curves are marked at each censoring time. If mark.time is a numeric vector, then curves are marked at the specified time po

xscale

a number used to divide the x values. If time was originally in days, a value of 365.25 would give a plotted scale in years.

firstx, firsty

the starting point for the survival curves. If either of these is set to NA or < blank > the plot will start at the first time point of the curve.

xmax

the maximum horizontal plot coordinate. This shortens the curve before plotting it, so unlike using the xlim graphical parameter, warning messages about out of bounds points are not generated.

fun

an arbitrary function defining a transformation of the survival curve. For example fun=log is an alternative way to draw a log-survival curve (but with the axis labeled with log(S) values). Four often used transformations can be specified

conf.int

if TRUE, confidence bands for the curves are also plotted. If set to "only", then only the CI bands are plotted, and the curve itself is left off. This can be useful for fine control over the colors or line types of a plot.

Value

• a list with components x and y, containing the coordinates of the last point on each of the curves (but not of the confidence limits). This may be useful for labeling.

Side Effects

one or more curves are added to the current plot.

Details

When the survfit function creates a multi-state survival curve the resulting object has class `survfitms'. The only difference in the plots is that that it defaults to a curve that goes from lower left to upper right (starting at 0), where survival curves default to starting at 1 and going down. All other options are identical.

See Also

lines, par, plot.survfit, survfit, survexp.

Examples

fit <- survfit(Surv(time, status==2) ~ sex, pbc,subset=1:312)
plot(fit, mark.time=FALSE, xscale=365.25,
        xlab='Years', ylab='Survival')
lines(fit[1], lwd=2, xscale=365.24)    #darken the first curve and add marks


# Add expected survival curves for the two groups,
#   based on the US census data
# The data set does not have entry date, use the midpoint of the study
efit <- survexp(~ ratetable(sex=sex,age=age*365.35,year=as.Date('1979/1/1')) +
            sex, data=pbc,  times=(0:24)*182)
temp <- lines(efit, lty=2, xscale=365.24, lwd=2:1)
text(temp, c("Male", "Female"), adj= -.1) #labels just past the ends
title(main="Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, Observed and Expected")