Accuracy of cause of death data routinely recorded in a population-based cancer registry: impact on cause-specific survival and validation using the Geneva cancer registry

BMC Cancer

Robin Schaffar¹  Elisabetta Rapiti³  Bernard Rachet²  Laura Woods¹ 

[1] Cancer Research UK Cancer Survival Group, Department of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

[2] Centre for Cancer Control and Statistics, Osaka Medical Centre for Cancer and Cardiovascular diseases, Osaka, Japan

[3] Geneva Cancer Registry, Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Geneva, 55 Boulevard de la Cluse, Geneva, 1205, Switzerland

关键词: Concordance;    Cancer registry;    Cause-of-death;    Cause-specific survival;   

Others  :  859183
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-13-609

 received in 2013-06-03, accepted in 2013-11-21,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

Information on the underlying cause of death of cancer patients is of interest because it can be used to estimate net survival. The population-based Geneva Cancer Registry is unique because registrars are able to review the official cause of death. This study aims to describe the difference between the official and revised cause-of-death variables and the impact on cancer survival estimates.

Methods

The recording process for each cause of death variable is summarised. We describe the differences between the two cause-of-death variables for the 5,065 deceased patients out of the 10,534 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1970 and 2009. The Kappa statistic and logistic regression are applied to evaluate the degree of concordance. The impact of discordance on cause-specific survival is examined using the Kaplan Meier method.

Results

The overall agreement between the two variables was high. However, several subgroups presented a lower concordance, suggesting differences in calendar time and less attention given to older patients and more advanced diseases. Similarly, the impact of discordance on cause-specific survival was small on overall survival but larger for several subgroups.

Conclusion

Estimation of cancer-specific survival could therefore be prone to bias when using the official cause of death. Breast cancer is not the more lethal cancer and our results can certainly not be generalised to more lethal tumours.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Schaffar et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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