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Necropsy Evidence of Detection Bias in the Diagnosis of Lung Cancer
Michael J. McFarlane, MD;
Alvan R. Feinstein, MD;
Carolyn K. Wells, MPH
Arch Intern Med. 1986;146(9):1695-1698.
Abstract
• The correct diagnosis had not been made during life in 26% of 153 patients with lung cancer found in necropsies performed between 1971 and 1982. The likelihood of a correct antemortem diagnosis showed distinctive gradients in relation to the patients' history and amount of cigarette smoking, symptomatic manifestations, and anatomic extensiveness of the cancers. However, cigarette smoking still exerted a diagnostic effect in patients with similar symptoms and similar degrees of anatomic spread. Furthermore, if a lesion was present, chest films were more likely to be radiologically interpreted as a cancer in smokers. The results suggest that smokers receive preferential consideration regarding the diagnosis of lung cancer. This detection bias can have adverse scientific consequences in depriving nonsmokers of suitable therapy, in leading to falsely high estimates of the true magnitude of the smoking/lung cancer association, and in distracting etiologic attention from other agents that may cause lung cancer.
(Arch Intern Med 1986;146:1695-1698)
Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Medicine (Dr Feinstein and Ms Wells) and Epidemiology (Dr Feinstein) and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (Drs McFarlane and Feinstein and Ms Wells), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn; and the Cooperative Studies Program Coordinating Center, Veterans Administration Medical Center, West Haven, Conn (Dr Feinstein). Dr McFarlane is now with the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City.
Footnotes
Accepted for publication Dec 9, 1985.
Reprint requests to Department of Internal Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, 39th and Rainbow Blvd, Kansas City, KS 66103 (Dr McFarlane).
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