A METHOD FOR PARTITIONING CANCER MORTALITY TRENDS BY FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH DIAGNOSIS - AN APPLICATION TO FEMALE BREAST-CANCER

U.S. cancer mortality data derived from information recorded on death certificates are frequently relied upon as an indicator of progress ag ainst cancer. A limitation of this measure is the lack of information pertaining to the onset of disease, such as year-of-diagnosis, age-at- diagnosis, stage of disease at diagnosis and histology of lesions. How ever, population-based cancer registries collect these types of data a nd allow the calculation of an incidence-file based mortality rate. Th is incidence-based mortality rate allows a partitioning of mortality b y variables associated with the cancer onset. Breast cancer incidence- based mortality measures are created and compared to mortality rates b ased on death certificates over a comparable time period. Novel mortal ity measures, such as mortality rates by stage-at-diagnosis, age-at-di agnosis and year-of-diagnosis, are used to illustrate the value of thi s approach.