title: A record linkage process of a cervical cancer screening database.
abstract: This paper aims at to present the integration of the files of the Brazilian Cervical Cancer Information System (SISCOLO) in order to identify all women in the system. SISCOLO has the exam as the unit of observation and the women are not uniquely identified. It has two main tables: histology and cytology, containing the histological and cytological examinations of women, respectively. In this study, data from June 2006 to December 2009 were used. Each table was linked with itself and with the other through record linkage methods. The integration identified 6236 women in the histology table and 1,678,993 in the cytology table. 5324 women from the histology table had records in the cytology table. The sensitivities were above 90% and the specificities and precisions near 100%. This study showed that it is possible to integrate SISCOLO to produce indicators for the evaluation of the cervical cancer screening programme taking the woman as the unit of observation.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Médicas, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
authors.forename: Sergio Miranda
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Freire
authors.forename: Rosimary Terezinha
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: de Almeida
authors.forename: Maria Deolinda Borges
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Cabral
authors.forename: Ediane de Assis
authors.initials: Ede A
authors.lastname: Bastos
authors.forename: Rômulo Cristovão
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Souza
authors.forename: Mariá Gonçalves Pereira
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: da Silva
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*