Estimating the prevalence of breast cancer using a disease model: data problems and trends.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Health policy and planning depend on quantitative data of disease epidemiology. However, empirical data are often incomplete or are of questionable validity. Disease models describing the relationship between incidence, prevalence and mortality are used to detect data problems or supplement missing data. Because time trends in the data affect their outcome, we compared the extent to which trends and known data problems affected model outcome for breast cancer. METHODS: We calculated breast cancer prevalence from Dutch incidence and mortality data (the Netherlands Cancer Registry and Statistics Netherlands) and compared this to regionally available prevalence data (Eindhoven Cancer Registry, IKZ). Subsequently, we recalculated the model adjusting for 1) limitations of the preval

SUBMITTER: Kruijshaar ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC156644 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature