title: Validity of the stage of lung cancer in records of the Maastricht cancer registry, The Netherlands.
abstract: Information collected in a clinical study on a random sample of 99 patients with inoperable lung cancer, treated with radiotherapy, was compared to the staging information in the Maastricht cancer registry. Validity of sex (0% disagreements), date of birth (0%), histology (1% major disagreements) and treatment (1%) was high, but the validity of stage was lower: 12% major and 23% minor disagreements. The misclassification of stage did not result in a shift in the survival estimates. If cancer registries intend to use stage in comparisons of survival, more validation studies are necessary.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cancer Registration and Epidemiology, Comprehensive Cancer Centre Limburg (IKL), Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Schouten
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Langendijk
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Jager
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: van den Brandt
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records / Q000592:standards*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging / Q000145:classification* / Q000592:standards; D009426:Netherlands; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015996:Survival Rate