A Large Prospective Study Evaluates the Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption

question 11

Multiple Choice

A large prospective study evaluates the relationship between alcohol consumption and breast cancer.  A total of 4000 middle-aged women are enrolled in the study through a random selection of residential addresses.  Daily alcohol consumption and breast cancer incidence are assessed through the use of periodic questionnaires.  On five-year follow-up, the investigators report the association between alcohol consumption and breast cancer as a relative risk of 1.32 (95% confidence interval = 0.90-1.85) ; 800 subjects were lost to follow-up by the end of the study, the majority of whom were moderate to heavy alcohol consumers.  According to this information, which of the following biases is most likely to be present and may have affected the results?

• A)Lead-time bias
• B)Observer bias
• C)Random misclassification bias
• D)Recall bias
• E)Selection bias

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