How to Put Survival After Cardiothoracic Interventions in the General Population Context: A Case-Based Practical Guideline to Calculate Cumulative Matched-General-Population Survival | Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes
BACKGROUND: Observed patient survival after cardiothoracic interventions should ideally be placed in the context of matched-general-population survival. This study outlines several methodologies of matching general population mortality to the study sample, subsequently calculating cumulative matched-general-population survival, highlighting their respective advantages, disadvantages, and limitations. METHODS: A multicenter data set containing survival data after the Ross procedure was used for methodological illustration. General population mortality was extracted from country-specific life tables in the Human Mortality Database. The matched-general-population mortality, also known as background mortality, was obtained by matching general population mortality to the study sample using different matching strategies, iteratively considering median/individual age and median/individual calendar year, besides country and sex. The corresponding cumulative matched-general-population survival
