Does the source of death information affect cancer screening efficacy results? A study of the use of mortality review versus death certificates in four randomized trials

Doria-Rose, V. Paul; Miller, Anthony B.; Bergstralh, Eric J.; Mandel, Jack S.; Tockman, Melvyn S.; Prorok, Philip C.

doi:10.1177/1740774509356461

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…We also rely on the data from secondary sources, such as death certificate. Usage of this information might yield uncontrolled errors and imprecision (Doria-Rose et al, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participation in health check-ups and mortality using propensity score matched cohort analyses

Hozawa

Kuriyama

Watanabe

et al. 2010

Preventive Medicine

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“…We also rely on the data from secondary sources, such as death certificate. Usage of this information might yield uncontrolled errors and imprecision (Doria-Rose et al, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participation in health check-ups and mortality using propensity score matched cohort analyses

Hozawa

Kuriyama

Watanabe

et al. 2010

Preventive Medicine

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“…Our findings, however, are only relevant to lung cancer screening trials among heavy/long-term smokers, and they cannot speak to the need for death review in other trials of cancer screening. Doria-Rose et al 1 also examined one randomized trial of colorectal cancer screening and one of breast cancer screening; for the colorectal trial, which reviewed all deaths, the degree of agreement on performance measures and primary endpoint was quite similar to that in the lung trials. No such similarity was seen for the breast trial, although only 80 deaths were reviewed, and selection criteria were employed that may have inherently led to poor performance measures (participants diagnosed with breast cancer with a death certificate COD other than breast cancer and participants with a suspect breast cancer COD due to other information on the death certificate).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…1 Death review in two lung cancer screening trials of male smokers, the Mayo Lung Project and the Johns Hopkins Lung Project, differed from that in the NLST, in that they included review of all deaths. Our arm-combined results for sensitivity (91%), specificity (97%), and positive predictive value (98%) are remarkably close to those from the Mayo and Hopkins trials (sensitivity: Mayo – 89% and Hopkins – 85%; specificity: 99% in both; positive predictive value: Mayo – 94% and Hopkins – 96%).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Did death certificates and a death review process agree on lung cancer cause of death in the National Lung Screening Trial?

et al. 2016

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Background/Aims Randomized controlled trials frequently use death review committees to assign a cause of death (COD) rather than relying on COD information from death certificates. The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), a randomized controlled trial of lung cancer screening with low dose computed tomography versus chest x-ray for heavy and/or long-term smokers ages 55-74 years at enrollment, used a committee blinded to arm assignment for a subset of deaths to determine whether COD was due to lung cancer. Methods Deaths were selected for review using a pre-determined computerized algorithm. The algorithm, which considered cancers diagnosed during the trial, causes and significant conditions listed on the death certificate, and the underlying cause of death derived from death certificate information by trained nosologists, selected deaths that were most likely to represent a death due to lung cancer (either directly or indirectly) and deaths that might have been erroneously assigned lung cancer as the COD. The algorithm also selected deaths that might be due to adverse events of diagnostic evaluation for lung cancer. Using the review COD as the gold standard and lung cancer COD as the outcome of interest (dichotomized as lung cancer vs. not lung cancer), we calculated performance measures of the death certificate COD. We also recalculated the trial primary endpoint using the death certificate COD. Results 1642 deaths were reviewed and assigned a COD (42% of the 3877 NLST deaths). Sensitivity of death certificate COD was 91%; specificity, 97%; positive predictive value, 98%; and negative predictive value, 89%. About 40% percent of the deaths reclassified to lung cancer COD had a death certificate COD of a neoplasm other than lung. Using the death certificate COD, the lung cancer mortality reduction was 18% (95% CI: 4.2-25.0), as compared with the published finding of 20% (95% CI: 6.7-26.7). Conclusions Death review may not be necessary for primary outcome analyses in lung cancer screening trials. If deemed necessary, researchers should strive to streamline the death review process as much as possible.

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“…Finally, manual review of death certificates did not yield additional information on the causes of death than was available from the electronic vital status files. Prior research shows that the information on death certificates, which is the source for our mortality files, is adequate for ascertaining the underlying cause of death [47]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observational methods to assess the effectiveness of screening colonoscopy in reducing right colon cancer mortality risk: SCOLAR

et al. 2015

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Aims Screening colonoscopy’s effectiveness in reducing risk of death from right colon cancers remains unclear. Methodological challenges of existing observational studies addressing this issue motivated the design of ‘Effectiveness of Screening for Colorectal Cancer in Average-Risk Adults (SCOLAR)’. Methods SCOLAR is a nested case–control study based on two large integrated health systems. This affords access to a large, well-defined historical cohort linked to integrated data on cancer outcomes, patient eligibility, test indications and important confounders. Results We found electronic data adequate for excluding ineligible patients (except family history), but not the detailed information needed for test indication assignment. Conclusion The lessons of SCOLAR’s design and implementation may be useful for future studies seeking to evaluate the effectiveness of screening tests in community settings.

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Does the source of death information affect cancer screening efficacy results? A study of the use of mortality review versus death certificates in four randomized trials

Abstract: For each trial, results were similar regardless of the source of cause of death information.

Cited by 20 publications

References 23 publications

Participation in health check-ups and mortality using propensity score matched cohort analyses

Participation in health check-ups and mortality using propensity score matched cohort analyses

Did death certificates and a death review process agree on lung cancer cause of death in the National Lung Screening Trial?

Observational methods to assess the effectiveness of screening colonoscopy in reducing right colon cancer mortality risk: SCOLAR

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