A new tool for survival analysis: evolutionary programming/evolutionary strategies (EP/ES) support vector regression hybrid using both censored/non-censored (event) data

While the role of survival analysis in medicine has continued to be increasingly essential in making treatment and other health care decisions, the common clinical methods used for performing these analyses, such as Cox Proportional Hazard models and Kaplan-Meier curves, have become antiquated. We have developed a new survival analysis technique of the Evolutionary Programming /Evolutionary Strategies Support Vector Regression Hybrid for censored and non-censored event data. This method provides the benefits of optimized statistical learning theory to be used as a replacement for or in addition to existing survival analysis protocols. The technique was tested on an artificially censored data from a well-known benchmark dataset as well as actual clinical data with encouraging results. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B. V.