How to get horizontal line for median in KM plot using proc lifetest for SAS 9.4 and EG 8.2

[Sairampulipati]

Hi, 

I am faicng issue in getting a median line horizontal at 0.5 where my Y-axis is 0 to 1 by 0.2 for Kaplan Meier Plot using proc life test. I am using SAS EG and platform is SAS 9.4;

[FreelanceReinh · Accepted solution]

Hi @Sairampulipati,

Do you face the same issue if you try to replicate the example Adding a Y-Axis Reference Line from the SAS documentation, that is, if you compile the macro code copied from https://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/stat/ex_code/151/templft.html and then run the code from the example?

[Sairampulipati]

Hi @FreelanceReinh, 

Thank you so much this works, I have few questions about the macro. Is the macro developed by SAS and is it validated? Can you please share more details about the macro. Thanks again.  

[FreelanceReinh]

You're welcome.

Those macros are closely linked to the name of SAS employee Warren F. Kuhfeld, PhD (now retired), see his initials in the header of the code (where also the "update" date July 25, 2013 documents how long they have been available and certainly used by many SAS programmers around the globe). So I assume that the macros were developed by himself or under his guidance. At least, he is the author of the documentation, as you can read in https://blogs.sas.com/content/author/warrenkuhfeld/ together with more information about him. He also wrote the 2017 blog article Customizing the Kaplan-Meier Plot and answered related questions in the SAS Support Communities, e.g., Re: Format KM curve with median survival line.

I can't imagine that SAS Institute would provide such macros in their official documentation if they weren't validated.

[WarrenKuhfeld]

Yes, it was all me. I covered every example that I ever heard of at the time where a user wanted to customize the KM plot. Every example in that chapter used the actual macros.