---
title: "Kaplan-Meier Survival Curve"
slug: "kaplan-meier-survival-curve"
updated: 2026-07-01T09:37:09Z
published: 2026-07-01T09:37:09Z
canonical: "userguide.dataclassroom.com/kaplan-meier-survival-curve"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://userguide.dataclassroom.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Kaplan-Meier Survival Curve

The **Kaplan-Meier** curve displays time-to-event data. An '**event**' is some clearly defined happening that only happens once, such as death, component failure, or similar.

The curve shows the survival rate over time, which starts at 1 (100% at time zero) and falls as time goes on.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/62f8f41e-e041-42c4-b9bc-8ae1eb45d064/Images/Documentation/image-1782301200542.png)In this example, (see it [on DataClassroom here](https://dataclassroom.com/en/dataseteditor/49b68904-6e89-41f2-8866-a0be23416f32)) the red arrow shows there is a 50% survival at about 73 weeks.

To display this curve, your dataset needs to be in this standardized format:

- A numerical column with the **Time to event** variable
- One row per event, where **Time to event** specifies when the event happened

Then you just need to go to the Advanced -> Survival curve in the left-hand menu:

![](https://cdn.document360.io/62f8f41e-e041-42c4-b9bc-8ae1eb45d064/Images/Documentation/image-1782301335088.png)

### Display options

You can display the curve optionally **with dots for the events**, with or without **gridlines**, and you can also choose to view the data **as a table**.

### Median and confidence interval

Beside the curve, you are also shown the calculated median survival time and 95% confidence intervals for that calculation. For the example above:

![](https://cdn.document360.io/62f8f41e-e041-42c4-b9bc-8ae1eb45d064/Images/Documentation/image-1782301580284.png)

The table view also shows these figures for each step-down in survival probability.

### Multiple groups

If you have an additional **categorical column** that **groups** the events/subjects into categories, you can display several curves at once:

![](https://cdn.document360.io/62f8f41e-e041-42c4-b9bc-8ae1eb45d064/Images/Documentation/image-1782301807970.png)

### Study drop-outs aka censoring

In such a survival study, there may well be participants or test subjects that leave the study before it ends. To take account of these, you need to add a **Status column** that marks whether the row signifies a standard study 'event' like a death, or whether it is a '**censoring**' event where the subject **left the study**.

The convention is that the status column be numeric with values **0 and 1**, with a **1 signifying an event**, and **0 meaning they were censored, i.e. left the study** at that time. So if no-one left the study, this column would be **all-ones**. The column should set to Categorical, but Numeric is also accepted.

*Note: The term 'censored' is also just a convention. It does not imply that anything is being deliberately hidden.*

You can optionally show these censoring events as small crosses on the curve:

![](https://cdn.document360.io/62f8f41e-e041-42c4-b9bc-8ae1eb45d064/Images/Documentation/image-1782302340261.png)