Figure 1. Diagram depicting the competing events for patients diagnosed with lung cancer.
In this context, deaths due to lung cancer are considered the events of interest and non-lung cancer deaths are considered competing events. Misclassification can occur when deaths due to lung cancer are misclassified as non-lung cancer deaths, leading to under-reporting of lung cancer deaths (a), or when non-lung cancer deaths are misclassified as lung cancer deaths, leading to over-reporting of lung cancer deaths (b).