Validity of self-reported cancer history in the health examinees (HEXA) study: A comparison of self-report and cancer registry records

To assess the validity of the cohort study participants' self-reported cancer history via data linkage to a cancer registry database.

We included 143,965 participants from the Health Examinees (HEXA) study recruited between 2004 and 2013 who gave informed consent for record linkage to the Korean Central Cancer Registry (KCCR). The sensitivity and the positive predictive value of self-reported histories of cancer were calculated and 95% confidence intervals were estimated.

A total of 4,860 participants who had at least one record in the KCCR were included in the calculation of sensitivity. In addition, 3,671 participants who reported a cancer history at enrollment were included in the calculation of positive predictive value. The overall sensitivity of self-reported cancer history was 72.0%. Breast cancer history among women showed the highest sensitivity (81.2%), whereas the lowest sensitivity was observed for liver cancer (53.7%) and cervical cancer (52.1%). The overall positive predictive value was 81.9%. The highest positive predictive value was observed for thyroid cancer (96.1%) and prostate cancer (96.1%), and the lowest was observed for cervical cancer (43.7%).

The accuracy of self-reported cancer history varied by cancer site and may not be sufficient to ascertain cancer incidence, especially for cervical and bladder cancers.

Cancer epidemiology. 2017 Jul 29 [Epub ahead of print]

Sooyoung Cho, Aesun Shin, Daesub Song, Jae Kyung Park, Yeonjung Kim, Ji-Yeob Choi, Daehee Kang, Jong-Koo Lee

Department of Preventive Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea., Department of Preventive Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: ., Division of Epidemiology and Health Index, Center for Genome Science, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Osong, Republic of Korea., Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Department of Biomedical Science, Seoul National University Graduate School, Seoul, Republic of Korea., Department of Preventive Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Department of Biomedical Science, Seoul National University Graduate School, Seoul, Republic of Korea., JW LEE Center for Global Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Department of Family Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Seoul Center for Infectious Disease Control, Seoul, Republic of Korea.