Analysis of survival of end-stage renal disease patients.

Traditional life-table analysis of differences in patient survival for various end-stage renal disease (ESRD) treatment modalities ignore the fact the ESRD patients face sequential risks because they frequently experience more than one mode of therapy. A modification of the usual life-table analysis is suggested as being more appropriate. This modified method takes into account the "time-to-treatment" bias, which, in this instance, is the time spent on the first modality of treatment (that is, center dialysis). The survival data of more than 2,000 ESRD patients in the State of Michigan during the 5-year period, 1974 to 1978, are used to illustrate this method.