Care pathway of women with interval breast cancer in 2016, based on medico-administrative data

PURPOSE: Assuring quality of care, while maintaining sustainability, in complex conditions such as breast cancer (BC) is an important challenge for health systems. Here, we describe a methodology to define a set of quality indicators, assess their computability from administrative data, and apply them to a large cohort of BC cases. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical professionals from the Italian Regional Oncology Networks identified 46 clinically relevant indicators of BC care; 22 were potentially computable using administrative data. Incident cases of BC diagnosed in 2016 in five Italian regions were identified using administrative databases from regional repositories. Each indicator was calculated through record linkage of anonymized individual data. RESULTS: A total of 15,342 incident BC cases were identified. Nine indicators were actually computable from administrative data (two structure and seven process indicators). Although most indicators were consistent with guidelines, for one indicator (blood tumor markers in the year after surgery, 44.2% to 64.5%; benchmark ≤ 20%), deviation was evident throughout the five regions, highlighting systematic overlooking of clinical recommendations. Two indicators (radiotherapy within 4 months after surgery if no adjuvant chemotherapy; 42% to 83.8%; benchmark ≥ 90%; and mammography 6 to 18 months after surgery, 55.1% to 72.6%; benchmark ≥ 90%) showed great regional variability and were lower than expected, possibly as result of an underestimation in indicator calculation by administrative data. CONCLUSION: Despite highlighting some limitations in the use of administrative data to measure health care performance, this study shows that evaluating the quality of BC care at a population level is possible and potentially useful for guiding quality improvement interventions.

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Can Chemotherapy-Related Acute Care Visits Be Accurately Identified in Administrative Data?

Journal of Oncology Practice ◽

10.1200/jop.2017.023697 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. e51-e58 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Monika K. Krzyzanowska ◽

Katherine Enright ◽

Rahim Moineddin ◽

Lingsong Yun ◽

Melanie Powis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Emergency Department ◽

Adjuvant Chemotherapy ◽

Acute Care ◽

Administrative Data ◽

Validation Cohort ◽

Early Stage ◽

Early Stage Breast Cancer ◽

Algorithm Validation ◽

Ed Visits

Purpose: There is increasing interest in using administrative data to examine treatment-related complications that lead to emergency department (ED) visits or hospitalizations (H). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability of billing codes for identifying chemotherapy-related acute care visits (CRVs) among women with early-stage breast cancer. Materials and Methods: The cohort was identified by using deterministically linked health databases and consisted of women who were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer who started adjuvant chemotherapy between 2007 and 2009 in Ontario, Canada. A random sample of 496 patient cases was chosen as the validation cohort. Sensitivity (SN) and specificity (SP) were calculated for three scenarios: chemotherapy-related ED visit, chemotherapy-related H, and febrile neutropenia (FN)–related visit. For FN-related visits, three definitions were considered: general, moderate, and strict. Results: The administrative cohort consisted of 8,359 patients, 43.4% of whom had at least one ED or H, including 1,496 women who had multiple visits that resulted in 6,293 unique visits. Of these, 73.1% were considered CRVs. The algorithm performed well in identifying CRVs that included H either from ED (SN, 90%; SP, 100%) or directly from home (SN, 91%; SP, 93%), but less well for ED visits that did not result in H (SN, 65%; SP, 80%). Depending on which FN algorithm was used, 4.8% to 24% of visits were considered related. The moderate FN algorithm provided the best tradeoff between SN (69% to 97%) and SP (83% to 98%). Conclusion: Administrative data can be valuable in evaluating chemotherapy-related serious events. Algorithm validation in other cohorts is needed.

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Interval breast cancer is associated with other types of tumors

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-019-12652-1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Felix Grassmann ◽

Wei He ◽

Mikael Eriksson ◽

Marike Gabrielson ◽

Per Hall ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Genetic Risk Score ◽

Breast Cancer Diagnosis ◽

Cancer Genes ◽

Common Variants ◽

Breast Cancer Patients ◽

Interval Breast Cancer ◽

Increased Risk ◽

History Of ◽

Screening And Prevention

Abstract Breast cancer (BC) patients diagnosed between two screenings (interval cancers) are more likely than screen-detected patients to carry rare deleterious mutations in cancer genes potentially leading to increased risk for other non-breast cancer (non-BC) tumors. In this study, we include 14,846 women diagnosed with BC of which 1,772 are interval and 13,074 screen-detected. Compared to women with screen-detected cancers, interval breast cancer patients are more likely to have a non-BC tumor before (Odds ratio (OR): 1.43 [1.19–1.70], P = 9.4 x 10−5) and after (OR: 1.28 [1.14–1.44], P = 4.70 x 10−5) breast cancer diagnosis, are more likely to report a family history of non-BC tumors and have a lower genetic risk score based on common variants for non-BC tumors. In conclusion, interval breast cancer is associated with other tumors and common cancer variants are unlikely to be responsible for this association. These findings could have implications for future screening and prevention programs.

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