Cancer studies are limited by the availability of the types of data routinely collected by cancer registries. This project will collect data on comorbidity and hospital characteristics to evaluate survival effects in registry based studies. The objectives of this study are: 1) Link case records on rare cancer sites from central cancer registries with records from appropriate state health offices to obtain patient comorbidity information and hospital treatment information. Types of data from the state offices can include public datasets of inpatients data collected from state licensed hospitals. Examples would include datasets with a record for each inpatient discharged from a state-licensed hospital. Licensed hospitals could include general acute care, acute psychiatric, chemical dependency recovery, and psychiatric health facilities. 2) Covariate information will be merged into a database with case information to evaluate the rare cancer survival. 3) Linked data will permit the ability to construct follow-up of rare cancer patients from more detailed examination of treatment details and prognosis with facility information to uncover rare cancer outcomes and subsequent diagnosis and treatment of other health conditions, resulting in a more comprehensive understanding of rare cancer survival and treatment.
