Completeness of cancer registration in Denmark 1943-1966 and efficacy of record linkage procedures.
The completeness of registration in the national, population based cancer registry in Denmark was evaluated for the first 23 years (1943-1966) of operation. The registry was linked to a complementary data file on 5674 Danish invasive cervical cancer patients enrolled in an international, clinical follow-up study on the basis of identifying information including name, month and year of birth and date of cervical cancer diagnosis. The cancer register had a deficit of 2.2% (95% confidence interval, 1.8-2.6) cervical cancer patients; this figure is low compared to those of other cancer registers. Some 80% of the identified cases were retrieved by computerized matching alone, and an additional 15% were identified by combining computerized and visual matching procedures. Scrutiny of non-retrieved case records revealed that major errors in the identifiers of the cohort used for linkage were responsible for inability to identify an additional 1.7%. The presents study underlines the importance of meticulously recorded, high quality key identifiers in registers, and linkage of cohorts to establish the presence or absence of disease.
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Danish Cancer Registry, Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen.
D003718:Denmark; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems; D008297:Male; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D008499:Medical Records; D008722:Methods; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards*; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology