Accuracy of reports of familial breast cancer in a case-control series.
We examined pathology records to determine the accuracy of reports of breast cancer among 125 first-degree relatives by 414 breast cancer cases and 429 population-based controls. Cases who reported only one affected relative tended to overreport the occurrence of breast cancer to a slightly larger extent (4%) than controls (3%). One-third of reports by cases with at least two affected relatives were erroneous, compared with none in the control group. Both cases and controls committed absolute errors of approximately 2 years when reporting the age at diagnosis of relatives. These results indicate that some recall bias is introduced when self-reports of breast cancer occurrence in first-degree relatives are used in case-control studies.
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Epidemiology Research Unit, Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Ghadirian
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Lacroix
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Perret
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D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation