Cause of death

Definition

Official cause of death as coded from the death certificate in valid ICD-7, ICD-8, ICD-9, and ICD-10 codes. If an appropriate ICD code cannot be found, there are three supplemental codes: 0000 Patient alive at last contact, 7777 State death certificate not available, and 7797 State death certification available by underlying cause of death is not coded (Refer to the SEER Program Code Manual for additional information). Cause of death is used for the calculation of adjusted survival rates by the life table method. This term was created for, but not limited in use to, the "Standards for Cancer Registries Volume II, Data Standards and Data Dictionary, Tenth Edition, Record Layout Version 11."