OBJECTIVES: In France, the HemSys database collects information on all the cases discussed in Multidisciplinary Concertation Meetings in Brittany in the field of onco-hematology. With more than 30,000 patients included, the database contains data on patient’s demographic and clinical characteristics, tumors, and treatment decisions. We investigated the potential of generalizability of HemSys’s results at the national level using hospitalization data from the French national Hospital database.

METHODS: The study was conducted in adult patients newly diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), multiple myeloma (MM), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), follicular lymphoma (FL), Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) between 2015 and 2021. We compared characteristics, in terms of age, sex, and initial treatment, between patients registered in the HemSys database and those recorded with a primary or a related diagnosis of hemopathy of interest in the PMSI database, used as reference. Comparisons were assessed using conformity tests.

RESULTS: 6,532 patients were registered in the HemSys database. A slight male predominance was observed (52.4-56.1%), except for the MCL (72,1% of men). Mean age at diagnosis ranged from 64.5 to 72.0 years, with the exception of HL with a lower age reported (44.5 years). Whatever the hemopathies, ratios men/women in the HemSys database were comparable to that observed nationally. Distribution of age was similar for AML and HL. Although small, statistically significant differences in mean age ranging from 1.2 to 2.1 were observed compared with the reference population for MM, DLBCL, LF, and MCL. Depending on the hemopathies, between 71.1 and 94.2% of patients initiated a first-line therapy. Types of treatment were similar to those observed at national level.

CONCLUSIONS: Results from the HemSys database can be generalizable at the national level. This study illustrates the interest of using the database for research in pharmacoepidemiology and healthcare outcomes assessment.