[Agreement between information supplied by the patient and a family member on medical history, consumption of tobacco, alcohol and coffee and diet in cancer of the exocrine pancreas and extrahepatic biliary tract].

OBJECTIVE

No study on mutations in the K-ras oncogene and cancer of the exocrine pancreas or cancer of the biliary system has analyzed the reliability of clinical and epidemiological information.

METHODS

Agreement between patient and surrogate on factors potentially related to both tumours was evaluated within a multicentre prospective study. Interviews were personally administered to both patient and surrogate (N = 110 pairs). Agreement was examined via the simple kappa index (k), the weighted kappa index (kw), the percentage of simple agreement, and the percentages of positive and negative agreement.

RESULTS

Agreement for medical history was excellent (k between 0.89 and 0.76), as it was for tobacco consumption (k = 0.98). Agreement was moderate for coffee consumption (k = 0.68), frequencies of food groups (kw from 0.66 to 0.38), and consumption of alcoholic drinks (k from 0.66 to 0.32). Surrogates indicated a higher consumption of alcohol than patients.

CONCLUSION

Surrogates can be an alternative source of information when patients cannot be interviewed, but information on alcohol consumption should be treated with caution.