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Median observation time

Posted by waynebwv on 27 Aug 2013 at 15:02 GMT

Does the median observation time pertain only to those men still alive at the time of analysis to distinguish it from median follow up? The latter was 11.3 years (1.2-16.5 yrs) but the former is reported as 14 years (10.9-17.8 yrs). How can the maximum follow up (16.5 yrs) be less than the maximum observation time (17.8 yrs)?
If the range of observation times pertains to living patients, the overall survival graph (Fig. 3) shows over a dozen censored (living) patients at less than 10.9 years, the reported minimum.
The median follow up and its range gives useful information but median observation time appears to be highly biased and misleading.

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