A quantitative method to evaluate the quality of interrupted animal cultures in aging studies.

A method is described for a quantitative estimation of the quality of interrupted animal cultures. It is applicable when survival can be described by a Weibull or by a Gompertz function. Application to four healthy and three infected cultures of Lymnaea stagnalis shows that survival curves can be successfully predicted from cultures censored at 25%, 50%, and 75% survival. The parameters of these predicted survival curves can be used to evaluate experimental results from single (longitudinal or cross-sectional) aging studies, and to evaluate comparisons among different aging studies.