ABSTRACT
Survival is a dichotomous variable and is complementary to mortality, but the statistical use of the term is for the duration of survival, which is a continuous variable and not dichotomous. The duration of survival of a patient with cancer after the detection of malignancy and the median survival time in cases of stroke are common examples. Sometimes the interest is in the binary outcome, such as percent surviving for a specific duration, for example, 5-year survival rate of end-disease renal patients on dialysis.
