READING MATERIAL (Click here for supplemental books)
Core Books
I am suggesting that students consider one main book for this year's class. The book by Cantor provides a solid introduction to the field. It covers the core theory (from an applied perspective) and offers many excellent SAS examples and macros to improve your analyses. It does not cover the latest version of SAS but is still highly useful. I will attempt to provide more up-to-date versions of the code to reflect current SAS procedures. This will be the core basis for the course. Copies have been ordered at the Health Sciences bookstore.
- Cantor AB. SAS Survival Analysis Techniques for Medical Research. Springer Sciences and SAS Institute, Cary, USA, 2003. ISBN: 978-1-59047-135-7
A strong competitor for the Cantor book is the following one by Allison. After many years, he has published an updated version (2010). It is a very practical book, covers modern SAS procedures and approaches and includes excellent examples. I considered using it instead of the Cantor book but it is less useful for explaining the background methods (it has a stronger computational approach). But, I highly recommend it as a complement to the Cantor book.
- Allison PD. Survival Analysis Using the SAS System: A Practical Guide (2nd edition). SAS Institute Inc., Cary, 2010. Comments: An excellent practical book that you could find extremely helpful if you plan on using SAS to undertake survival analyses. It covers basic concepts rather briefly but is filled with examples of SAS programme to produce a wide range of analyses. It also illustrates the 'latest' options within SAS to facilitate analysis.
A third book (by Machin et al) gives a somewhat more advanced presentation of the core material with a more mathematical bent. It includes some topics that are not covered by Cantor. This would be a good book for people with a deeper interest in theory behind the methods we will be covering.
- Machin D, Cheung YB, Parmar MKB. Survival Analysis: A Practical Approach. 2nd edition. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. 2006. ISBN: 0-470-87040-0
To supplement this book and my suggested readings, additional resources and reading material can always be useful. So, here are some other recommended books, followed by a list of supplemental books which might be useful for some students.
First, SAS. You should have been exposed to SAS during Biostatistics 1. If not, or if you want to develop a stronger foundation with SAS, the following two books are very useful. You can explore these books at SAS (http://support.sas.com/publishing/). In fact, large chunks of these books can be read on-line at no charge.
- Delwiche LD, Slaughter SJ. The Little SAS Book: A Primer, 3rd edition. SAS Institute, Cary, NC, 2003. Comments: This book is not a great reference guide (since it limits discussion to 2 pages on every topic). But, it gives an excellent over-view of most topics in data management, etc. In particular, make sure to look at the ODS material and the discussion on data set manipulations.
- Cody R. Learning SAS by Example: A Programmer’s Guide. 2nd edition. SAS Institute, Cary, NC, 2007. Comments: The Cody book is more detailed and provides a slightly more advanced coverage of material.
Next, to the course content. This book provides another way at looking at the core material.
- Dupont WD. Statistical Modeling for Biomedical Researchers: A Simple Introduction to the Analysis of Complex Data, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. Comments: A good book, covering nearly everything in the course with an appropriate level of presentation. However, all of the examples are worked out using STATA rather than SAS. It is also sometimes rather terse in the explanations.
