Cancer is a major public health issue and represents a significant economic burden to health care systems worldwide. The objective of this analysis was to estimate phase-specific, 5-year and lifetime ...net costs for the 21 most prevalent cancer sites, and remaining tumour sites combined, in Ontario, Canada.
We selected all adult patients diagnosed with a primary cancer between 1997 and 2007, with valid ICD-O site and histology codes, and who survived 30 days or more after diagnosis, from the Ontario Cancer Registry (N = 394,092). Patients were linked to treatment data from Cancer Care Ontario and administrative health care databases at the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences. Net costs (i.e., cost difference between patients and matched non-cancer control subjects) were estimated by phase of care and sex, and used to estimate 5-year and lifetime costs.
Mean net costs of care (2009 CAD) were highest in the initial (6 months post-diagnosis) and terminal (12 months pre-death) phases, and lowest in the (3 months) pre-diagnosis and continuing phases of care. Phase-specific net costs were generally lowest for melanoma and highest for brain cancer. Mean 5-year net costs varied from less than $25,000 for melanoma, thyroid and testicular cancers to more than $60,000 for multiple myeloma and leukemia. Lifetime costs ranged from less than $55,000 for lung and liver cancers to over $110,000 for leukemia, multiple myeloma, lymphoma and breast cancer.
Costs of cancer care are substantial and vary by cancer site, phase of care and time horizon analyzed. These cost estimates are valuable to decision makers to understand the economic burden of cancer care and may be useful inputs to researchers undertaking cancer-related economic evaluations.
Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) has the potential to reduce patient injury resulting from medication errors. We assessed the impact of a CPOE system on medication errors and adverse drug ...events (ADEs) in pediatric inpatients.
A retrospective cohort study.
Tertiary care pediatric hospital.
Pediatric inpatients on 3 medical and 2 surgical wards.
CPOE system implemented on 2 medical wards and compared with 1 medical and 2 surgical wards that continued to use hand written orders.
Rate of medication error and ADEs before and after CPOE implementation.
In 6 years, a total of 804 medication errors were identified with 18 ADEs, resulting in patient injury among 36 103 discharges and 179 183 patient days. The overall medication error rate (MER) was 4.49 per 1000 patient days. Before the introduction of CPOE, the MERs of the intervention versus control wards were indistinguishable (ratio = 0.93; 95% confidence interval CI = 0.76, 1.13). After the introduction of CPOE, the MER was 40% lower on the intervention than on the control wards (ratio = 0.60; 95% CI = 0.48, 0.74). On average, 490 patient days are required to see the benefit of one less medication error using CPOE. We did not demonstrate a similar effect of CPOE for ADEs (ratio of rate ratios = 1.30; 95% CI 0.47, 3.52).
The introduction of a commercially available physician computer order entry system was associated with a significant decrease in the rate of medication errors but not ADEs in an inpatient pediatric population.
Background: Costing studies are useful to measure the economic burden of cancer. Comparing costs between healthcare systems can inform evaluation, development or modification of cancer care policies.
...Objectives: To estimate and compare cancer costs in British Columbia and Ontario from the payers' perspectives.
Methods: Using linked cancer registry and administrative data, and standardized costing methodology and analyses, we estimated costs for 21 cancer sites by phase of care to determine potential differences between provinces.
Results: Overall, costs were higher in Ontario. Costs were highest in the initial post-diagnosis and pre-death phases and lowest in the pre-diagnosis and continuing phases, and generally higher for brain cancer and multiple myeloma, and lower for melanoma. Hospitalization was the major cost category. Costs for physician services and diagnostic tests differed the most between provinces.
Conclusions: The standardization of data and costing methodology is challenging, but it enables interprovincial and international comparative costing analyses.
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have led to the identification of a number of common susceptibility loci for colorectal cancer (CRC); however, none of these GWAS have considered ...gene-environment (G × E) interactions. Therefore, it is unclear whether current hits are modified by environmental exposures or whether there are additional hits whose effects are dependent on environmental exposures.
We conducted a systematic search for G × E interactions using genome wide data from the Colon Cancer Family Registry that included 1,191 cases of microsatellite stable (MSS) or microsatellite instability-low (MSI-L) CRC and 999 controls genotyped using either the Illumina Human1M or Human1M-Duo BeadChip. We tested for interactions between genotypes and 14 environmental factors using 3 methods: a traditional case-control test, a case-only test, and the recently proposed 2-step method by Murcray and colleagues. All potentially significant findings were replicated in the ARCTIC Study.
No G × E interactions were identified that reached genome-wide significance by any of the 3 methods. When analyzing previously reported susceptibility loci, 7 significant G × E interactions were found at a 5% significance level. We investigated these 7 interactions in an independent sample and none of the interactions were replicated.
Identifying G × E interactions will present challenges in a GWAS setting. Our power calculations illustrate the need for larger sample sizes; however, as CRC is a heterogeneous disease, a tradeoff between increasing sample size and heterogeneity needs to be considered.
The results from this first genome-wide analysis of G × E in CRC identify several challenges, which may be addressed by large consortium efforts.
We evaluated the validity of physician billing claims to identify deceased organ donors in large provincial healthcare databases.
We conducted a population-based retrospective validation study of all ...deceased donors in Ontario, Canada from 2006 to 2011 (n = 988). We included all registered deaths during the same period (n = 458,074). Our main outcome measures included sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of various algorithms consisting of physician billing claims to identify deceased organ donors and organ-specific donors compared to a reference standard of medical chart abstraction.
The best performing algorithm consisted of any one of 10 different physician billing claims. This algorithm had a sensitivity of 75.4% (95% CI: 72.6% to 78.0%) and a positive predictive value of 77.4% (95% CI: 74.7% to 80.0%) for the identification of deceased organ donors. As expected, specificity and negative predictive value were near 100%. The number of organ donors identified by the algorithm each year was similar to the expected value, and this included the pre-validation period (1991 to 2005). Algorithms to identify organ-specific donors performed poorly (e.g. sensitivity ranged from 0% for small intestine to 67% for heart; positive predictive values ranged from 0% for small intestine to 37% for heart).
Primary data abstraction to identify deceased organ donors should be used whenever possible, particularly for the detection of organ-specific donations. The limitations of physician billing claims should be considered whenever they are used.
Background and Study Aims
This study aimed to identify whether ulcerative colitis (UC) patients who develop colorectal cancer (CRC) present at earlier stages of CRC and have improved survival if ...prior to their CRC diagnosis, they underwent intermittent follow-up colonoscopies compared to those who have no follow-up colonoscopies.
Methods
Patients with UC who developed primary CRC were identified using data provided by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. We defined low-risk CRC stage as estimated 5-year survival ≥ 80% compared to high-risk CRC as 5-year survival < 80%.
Results
A total of 421 patients were identified with UC and CRC. The 15-year mortality rate was significantly higher in those who did not have follow-up colonoscopy (33/74; 44.6%) compared to the follow-up group (105/347; 30.3%) (p = 0.0172). Among the 219 patients with UC with staging information available, patients who did not have follow-up colonoscopy were more likely to present with high-risk CRC (24/31; 77.4%) compared with patients who had follow-up colonoscopies (88/188; 44.4%) (p = 0.0016). Those who underwent follow-up colonoscopies at average intervals ≤ 3 years presented with high-risk CRC 41.3% of the time, which was less than the 48.6% in those with less frequent colonoscopies and 77.4% in those with no follow-up (p = 0.0048).
Conclusions
Patients with UC who underwent intermittent follow-up colonoscopies had CRC detected at earlier stages and improvement in all-cause mortality, compared to those who with no follow-up colonoscopies. This may support regular surveillance colonoscopies for patients with UC.
Background Regional variation in the use of surgery implies that there is uncertainty regarding appropriate use. The objectives of this study were to identify which surgical procedures are most ...commonly performed in the province of Ontario and measure the extent of variation in the use of surgical procedures across Ontario counties. Methods We used the Canadian Institute for Health Information Discharge Abstract Database, Same Day Surgery Database and National Ambulatory Care Reporting System to retrieve information on all inpatient and day surgery visits in Ontario between Apr. 1, 2002, and Mar. 31, 2011. We identified the 84 most common procedures according to Canadian Classification of Interventions codes. We calculated rates of use for each procedure throughout the 49 Ontario counties and then calculated measures of variation (quartile ratio and systematic component of variation) in use between the counties. Results Colonoscopy was the most commonly performed procedure during the study period, with an average adjusted rate of 2012 per 100 000 population. The procedure with the highest measure of variation was iridectomy, with a quartile ratio of 6.7, followed by colposcopy (5.2), cervical biopsy (4.2) and femoral arteriography (4.1). These procedures were less commonly performed. Common procedures such as colonoscopy, cataract extraction and vaginal delivery had lower quartile ratios. Analysis using the systematic component of variation as the measure of variation gave similar results. Interpretation Colonoscopy was the most commonly performed procedure in Ontario, and cataract extraction was the most common surgical procedure. Procedures with the highest measures of variation between counties tended to be those that occurred less commonly in Ontario, and common procedures were associated with less regional variation.
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