Confirmation of Cancer and Cause of Death

核心B负责确认护士健康研究队列中的所有癌症报告和所有死亡。 这一核心的具体目标如下： 1)记录并确认从问卷调查、电话访谈和死亡记录中收集的癌症事件报告。 2)识别队列参与者中的所有死亡并确定死亡原因。 3)为流行病学分析提供癌症诊断和所有死亡的标准化数据文件。 在Meir Stampfer，MD，DrPh的指导下，核心B获得医疗记录和其他相关信息，以确认癌症诊断和队列死亡。在过去的32年里，NHS调查人员和队列参与者之间的信任已经发展到了一个非常高的合作程度，以确保审查医疗记录的许可，并从家属那里确定死因的细节。医疗记录由医生根据统一的标准化标准进行审查，以确认癌症诊断并获得组织病理学的详细信息，包括肿瘤部位，阶段和等级。我们通过邮寄调查问卷了解大多数死亡情况，并在全国死亡指数中搜索未接受调查问卷的人。州肿瘤登记处也用于确认癌症诊断和死亡。定制设计的计算机软件已经开发出来，用于跟踪从诊断或死亡的最初报告到最终确认的进展。该软件还自动生成给参与者和医疗机构的信函，要求提供医疗记录和其他信息。在每两年一次的随访周期结束时，为特定癌症诊断和所有癌症患者生成标准化文件。 所有使用NHS数据进行研究的调查人员都将使用死亡人数。

Core B is responsible for confirming all cancer reports and all deaths in the Nurses' Health Study cohort. The specific aims for this core are as follows: 1) To document and confirm reports of incident cancer as collected from the questionnaires, telephone interviews, and death records. 2) To identify all deaths among cohort participants and to ascertain the cause of death. 3) To provide standardized data files of cancer diagnoses and all deaths for epidemiologic analyses. Under the direction of Meir Stampfer, MD, DrPh, Core B obtains medical records and other relevant information to confirm cancer diagnoses and cohort deaths. The trust that has evolved over the past thirty-two years between the NHS investigators and cohort participants has led to an extremely high degree of cooperation in securing permission to review medical records, and from the families in ascertaining the details of the cause of death. Medical records are reviewed by physicians according to uniform standardized criteria to confirm the cancer diagnoses and obtain details of the histopathology, including tumor site, stage, and grade. We learn of most deaths through the questionnaire mailings and we search the National Death Index for questionnaire nonrespondents. State tumor registries are also utilized to confirm cancer diagnoses and deaths. Custom-designed computer software has been developed to track the progress from the initial report of a diagnosis or death to the final confirmation. The software also automatically generates letters to participants and medical institutions for requesting medical records and additional Information. At the end of every biennial follow-up cycle, standardized files are generated for specific cancer diagnoses and for all deaths to be used by all investigators conducting research with the NHS data.