Johnson Christopher J, Weir Hannah K, Yin Daixin, Niu Xiaoling
Cancer Data Registry of Idaho, 615 N. 7th Street, P.O. Box 1278, Boise, IN 83701-1278, USA.
J Registry Manag. 2010 Fall;37(3):86-103.
This study was designed to measure the impact of variation in patient follow-up on survival statistics.
surveillance, epidemiology and end results (SEER) data were used to construct four additional datasets. These datasets simulated scenarios of complete, incomplete, and no follow-up of live patients; and complete and incomplete death ascertainment. Sixty-month observed survival proportions were calculated using the actual SEER data and the four additional datasets.
The 60-month observed survival proportion increased from 54.44% under the original SEER dataset to 54.62% under complete ascertainment of deaths with no follow-up among live patients. Under complete death ascertainment, randomly imputing loss to follow-up among 20% of live cases resulted in a 1%-2% decrease in 60-month observed survival for 71 of the 102 SEER site categories. With follow-up limited to ascertainment of deaths, randomly missing 6% of deaths resulted in a 1% or greater increase in 60-month observed survival for 99 SEER site categories.
This study provides evidence to support the importance of complete death ascertainment for producing accurate cancer survival statistics, and that ascertainment of deaths only should generally be sufficient for survival analysis.
本研究旨在衡量患者随访差异对生存统计数据的影响。
利用监测、流行病学及最终结果（SEER）数据构建另外四个数据集。这些数据集模拟了在世患者完全随访、不完全随访和无随访的情况；以及完全和不完全的死亡确定情况。使用实际的SEER数据和另外四个数据集计算60个月的观察生存率。
在在世患者无随访但完全确定死亡的情况下，60个月的观察生存率从原始SEER数据集的54.44%增至54.62%。在完全确定死亡的情况下，对20%的在世病例随机进行随访缺失插补，导致102个SEER站点类别中的71个类别60个月观察生存率下降1%-2%。若随访仅限于确定死亡情况，随机遗漏6%的死亡病例会使99个SEER站点类别60个月观察生存率提高1%或更多。
本研究提供了证据，支持完全确定死亡对于得出准确的癌症生存统计数据的重要性，并且一般来说仅确定死亡情况对于生存分析就应足够。
