[Death certification of pleural malignant mesothelioma from the Italian National Institute of Statistics: a comparison on 269 clinical diagnosis confirmed at autopsy (1997-2016)]

Objectives: To evaluate the agreement between pleural malignant mesothelioma diagnosis in life, with diagnoses confirmed at autopsy, and the certification of the cause of death in the form of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat).

Design: comparison between autopsic cases and cases from Istat.

Setting and participants: two series of autopsy diagnoses of pleural malignant mesothelioma placed from 1997 to 2016; 185 in shipyard workers and 90 in Brescia province inhabitants, for whom the Istat death form was acquired for 180 and 89 subjects, respectively.

Results: the general agreement between pleural malignant mesothelioma clinical diagnosis in life and death certification was about 91% for the first group and 92% for the second one. In the first group, the age at diagnosis does not affect the accuracy of the death certification, which instead increased over time to become total in the period 2010-2016.

Conclusions: the study suggests that the agreement between pleural malignant mesothelioma clinical diagnosis and certification of the cause of death appears to be very high.