A study of patients not registered in the Swedish cancer register but reported to the Swedish register of palliative care 2009 as deceased due to cancer

Figures & data

Figure 1. Selection of study cases.

Table I. Site distribution for the 183 cases in the study and the 21 717 cancer deaths in 2009 in Sweden according to the Cause of Death Register.

	Cases in the study		Died in 2009
Site	n	%	n	%	p-value
Lung	40	22	3486	16	< 0.05
Pancreas	40	22	1543	7	< 0.001
Breast	2	1	1396	6	< 0.001
Colorectal	15	8	2631	12	n.s.
Prostate	9	5	2424	11	< 0.01
Liver & biliary tract	18	10	634	3	< 0.001
Skin	0	0	560	3	< 0.01
Other sites	59	32	9043	42	< 0.05
Total	183	100	21 717	100

Table II. Distribution for basis of diagnosis for the 183 cases in the study.

Basis of diagnosis	Number of cases	Percent of cases
Histological examination	n = 32	17%
Transcutaneous biopsy	n = 13
Bone marrow biopsy	n = 6
Colonoscopy	n = 2
Bronchoscopy	n = 1
Operation	n = 8
Autopsy	n = 2
Cytological examination	n = 7	4%
Radiological investigation	n = 123	67%
CT	n = 108
MRT	n = 3
Ultrasound	n = 7
X-ray	n = 3
Scintigraphy	n = 1
Unclear	n = 1
Operation without histological examination	n = 1	0.5%
Clinical examination	n = 12	7%
Gastroscopy	n = 1
Laboratory tests	n = 3
Tumor markers	n = 5
Manual examination	n = 3
Unclear	n = 8	4.5%
Total	n = 183	100%

Table III. Department responsible for cancer diagnosis in the 183 cases not reported to the SCR.

Department responsible for diagnosis	Number of cases	Percent of cases (%)
Internal medicine	68	37
Surgical	82	45
Gynecological	6	3
Oncological	6	3
Primary healthcare	14	8
Unclear	7	4
Total	183	100