A deep survival analysis method based on ranking.

•The proposed RankDeepSurv is superior to three state-of-the-art survival models.•This paper proposes a loss function based on regression and rank constraints for survival analysis.•RankDeepSurv and the Cox proportional hazard model used by clinicians to predict the recurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. RankDeepSurv shows better concordance index in clinical practice.•The nasopharyngeal carcinoma data set is published by this paper.