title: Cause-of-death assignment at the National Center for Toxicological Research.
abstract: The system for assigning cause of death in animal studies of carcinogenicity at the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) is described. An empirical study of the NCTR's experience with its current cause-of-death assignment system based on selected representative experiments is reported. Issues investigated include the degree of confidence associated with histologic cause-of-death assignment, potential age-, dose-, and sex-related differences in assigned grades of certainty of cause of death, and frequencies of identification of various organ-specific and systemic diagnoses as the cause of death. Implications for age-adjusted statistical tests of carcinogenicity that require cause-of-death data are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biometry and Risk Assessment, National Center for Toxicological Research, Jefferson, Arkansas 72079, USA.
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Kodell
authors.forename: B N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Blackwell
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Bucci
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Greenman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001681:Biological Assay; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006633:Histamine Antagonists / Q000633:toxicity; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D006633:Histamine Antagonists