Linear Rank Tests for Survival Data: Equivalence of Two Formulations

For time-to-event measurements with right censoring, the usual two-sample linear rank tests can be rewritten (asymptotically) as weighted Mantel-Haenszel statistics, and vice versa. This result follows from the articles by Prentice (1978), Mehrotra, Michalek, and Mihalko (1982), and Cuzick (1985). This article presents an elementary and heuristic argument for the equivalence of these two formulations.