Follow-up consists of a computerized version of a follow-up questionnaire. 40,755 subjects were interviewed by phone, using this computerised method, between 1996 and 1999. Follow-up for the identification of cancer cases is done every two years. It is based on a computerized record-linkage programme that links EPIC files with the population cancer registries of Asturias, Basque Country, Granada, Murcia and Navarra. Other sources of information (discharge data-based, pathology reports) are also being used. The main source of mortality data is the National Mortality Registry from the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Other regional sources, as well as letters to the members of the Spanish cohort, are being sent each year in some centres to up-date the vital status. By December 2006, 2463 new cases of cancer had been diagnosed and 995 participants had died.