Life tables for global surveillance of cancer survival (the CONCORD programme): data sources and methods

Net survival can be interpreted as the proportion of cancer patients who survive up to a given time, after eliminating the impact of mortality from other causes (background mortality). Background mortality varies widely between populations and over time.

It was therefore necessary to construct robust life tables that accurately reflected the background mortality in each of the registry populations. Life tables of all-cause mortality rates by single year of age and sex were constructed by calendar year for each population and, when possible, by racial or ethnic sub-groups. We used three different approaches, based on the type of mortality data available from each registry.