INSIGHT INTO THE ROLE OF THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER IN THE MANAGEMENT OF COLORECTAL CANCER- RECORD LINKAGE OF THE NETHERLANDS CANCER REGISTRY AND THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER DATABASE OF THE PHARMO DATABASE NETWORK
Author(s)
Kuiper JG1, van Herk-Sukel MP2, Lemmens VE3, van Wijngaarden R4, Herings RM5
1Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 3Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 4STIZON, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 5PHARMO Institute for Drug Outcomes Research, Utrecht, The Netherlands
OBJECTIVES: Little information is available on the role of the general practitioner (GP) in colorectal cancer (CRC) care. Therefore, the objective of this study was to establish a link between the Netherlands Cancer Registry (NCR) and the GP Database of the PHARMO Database Network and creating a CRC-GP population. METHODS: A linkage was performed between the NCR - a population-based registry of newly diagnosed cancer patients in the Netherlands - and the GP Database of the PHARMO Database Network which comprises data from electronic patient records registered by GPs, including information on diagnoses/symptoms, laboratory test results, referrals and healthcare product/drug prescriptions. After pairing records in both databases on gender and birth year, a linkage weight was calculated based on: first initial, first letter last name, 4-digit zip code and precense/absence of cancer related events as singular variables. Patients diagnosed with CRC between 1998-2014 were selected, resulting in a CRC-GP population. The representativeness of this population to the total NCR population was evaluated by comparing the distribution of gender, age at tumour diagnosis, tumour stage and tumour site. RESULTS: In total, there were more than 19,000 CRC patients in the linked CRC-GP population, of which 66% were diagnosed with colon cancer, 30% with rectum cancer and 4% with rectosigmoid cancer. These patients were representative for the cancer patients included in the total NCR. The difference in percentage between these two populations showed that patients who were linked tended to be somewhat younger (68.2 years vs. 69.7 years) and were slightly less often diagnosed with an advanced tumour stage (19% vs. 21%). CONCLUSIONS: The linked CRC-GP population is representative of the total NCR population. The CRC-GP population will create more insight into the role of the GP in CRC care and will give more opportunities to monitor the patients before, during and after cancer diagnosis.
Conference/Value in Health Info
2017-11, ISPOR Europe 2017, Glasgow, Scotland
Value in Health, Vol. 20, No. 9 (October 2017)
Code
PRM63
Topic
Real World Data & Information Systems
Topic Subcategory
Reproducibility & Replicability
Disease
Oncology