Turano LM, Laudico AV, Esteban DB, Pisani P, Parkin DM
Manila Cancer Registry, Philippine Cancer Society, Inc., PO. Box 3066, Manila, Philippines.
Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2002;3(2):133-135.
Death certificates are an important source of information for cancer registries that help to improve completeness of case finding. In many countries where routine mortality data are considered of poor quality, this source is often regarded as being of little value. We evaluated the contribution of death certificates to the total number of registrations in the years 1993-1997, in the Manila Cancer Registry (MCR). We compared the "standard" practice of retrieving clinical information if the death certificate was completed in a hospital, with active search of additional information from the deceased's relatives when the death was certified at home.The standard procedure allowed us to reduce the proportion of cases registered from a death certificate by 5%. The improvement varied significantly among the most common sites with a reduction of 10% for lymphomas to less than 1% for cancers of the cervix.The proportion of liver cancers registered from a death certificate only (DCO), originally 47%, was reduced to 29% by contacting relatives of the deceased patients. In countries with limited investment in information systems, death certificates, even when recognised as being of poor quality, are an important source of information for cancer registries.
死亡证明是癌症登记处重要的信息来源，有助于提高病例发现的完整性。在许多认为常规死亡率数据质量较差的国家，这个信息来源通常被认为价值不大。我们评估了1993年至1997年期间，马尼拉癌症登记处（MCR）死亡证明对登记总数的贡献。我们比较了在医院开具死亡证明时检索临床信息的“标准”做法，与在家中开具死亡证明时从死者亲属处积极搜索额外信息的做法。标准程序使我们能够将仅根据死亡证明登记的病例比例降低5%。在最常见的癌症部位中，改进情况差异显著，淋巴瘤降低了10%，而宫颈癌则降至不到1%。仅根据死亡证明登记的肝癌比例（DCO），最初为47%，通过联系死者患者的亲属降至29%。在信息系统投资有限的国家，即使死亡证明被认为质量较差，它仍是癌症登记处重要的信息来源。
