survival analysis with a continuos variable

Question

[igor]

I am trying to correlate survival with a continuous variable (for example, gene expression). I've been using the survival package in R to deal with survival data and it seems to be very comprehensive, but there does not seem to be a way to do correlation. Is there a proper method for that?

I am concerned it's not appropriate or not possible for survival data. Maybe that is why variables are binned by group in all the survival data that I have seen.

However, there is a Cox proportional hazards regression model test that is implemented in the coxph() function. That sounds like the most appropriate alternative. Is it?

Answer 1

[sviatoslav.kendall]

When I do survival analysis with a continuous variable as the predictor, I use the coxph() function something like this:

coxph_obj = coxph(Surv(my_Data$Survival_Time, my_Data$Survival_Event) ~ my_Data$Continous_Variable)

But here's an older post that you might find helpful: R survival analysis

[igor]

I saw that post and found it very helpful. I mainly wanted to check if coxph is the best approach or if there better methods.