Berg J W
Natl Cancer Inst Monogr. 1985 May;67:123-7.
In vital statistics and most epidemiologic studies, cancers have been classified mostly by site of origin alone. This continues to be true even though it is continually being demonstrated that among cancers of a site important subsets with different epidemiologies almost always are present. Reasons for epidemiologists' failure to use all the information contained in the standard cancer classification are explored as are problems that arise from the nature of the classification, from the nature of the cancers being classified, and even from patient characteristics that determine how much information on the cancer can be gathered. The solution to the problem of too little information is generally difficult, but pathologists can say more about the epidemiologic implications of their various diagnoses and epidemiologists can learn to use these diagnoses in their cohort and other studies.
在生命统计和大多数流行病学研究中，癌症大多仅根据起源部位进行分类。即便不断有证据表明，在同一部位的癌症中几乎总会存在具有不同流行病学特征的重要亚组，但情况依旧如此。本文探讨了流行病学家未能利用标准癌症分类中所含全部信息的原因，以及因分类性质、所分类癌症的性质，甚至是决定能收集到多少癌症信息的患者特征而产生的问题。信息过少问题的解决方法通常很难，但病理学家可以更多地说明其各种诊断的流行病学意义，流行病学家也可以学会在队列研究和其他研究中运用这些诊断结果。
