Year: 1998
Type: letter
Abstract: The method used by Walach et al.1 to assess spousal aggregation of cancer occurrence is biased toward exaggerating spousal concordance. They asked patients with cancer, seen in the Assaf Harofe Medical Center in Israel, whether their spouses had also had cancer. Apparently such spouses could be drawn from source populations outside of the population that visited the Assaf Harofe Medical Center. By this method, the only persons with cancer who could be identified from outside sources were those married to cancer patients. There were most certainly cancer patients in these outside sources whose spouses had not had cancer, but these nonconcordant spouse pairs were not identified. Had they been identified and included in the study, the observed proportion of concordant pairs would have been lower, i.e., closer (or perhaps equal) to the proportion that could be expected by chance. Gary D. Friedman M.D. M.S.*, Charles P. Quesenberry Jr. Ph.D.*
Source: Cancer
Authors: Gary D. Friedman, Charles P. Quesenberry
Institutions: Kaiser Permanente, Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center
Language: English
Subfield: Oncology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1491427924