Death certificates are valid for the determination of cause of death in patients with upper and lower tract urothelial carcinoma

摘要

Accurate appraisal of cause of death (COD) is critically important for determining correct cause-specific survival in cancer patients. Death certificates are used for assessment of COD in case control [1], cohort outcomes [2], and occupational mortality studies [3]. Likewise, large data sets, such as the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results program, and tumor registries rely on death certificates to assign COD [4,5]. However, this method may become inaccurate (1) when patients get older, (2) when patients have serious comorbidities associated with a risk of dying of other causes [6,7], or (3) when cancer patients are long-term survivors.