) The broad long-term goal of this revised research program is to produce an educational program to train cancer registrars (CR) to code co-morbidity information for inclusion into cancer registries. There are three specific aims: 1) to teach CR to code co-morbidity information with the use of a valid co-morbidity instrument; 2) to assess accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of co-morbidity coding, and 3) to develop an educational program consisting of written materials and a videotape to train cancer registrars at other hospitals. Cancer patients often have other non-neoplastic diseases or co-morbidity. These other diseases can be so severe as to impact on prognosis, treatment selection, and outcomes. At present, data collected by cancer registries include demographic descriptions of the patient and morphologic descriptions of the tumor. However, no information about co-morbidity is presently collected. Several valid measures of co-morbidity exist and their inclusion in cancer registries would improve the scientific accuracy of cancer statistics and evaluation of treatment. This project will be a two-year, prospective, longitudinal study with three distinct phases. Phase I will include education of CR on the importance of co-morbidity to the pretreatment evaluation and classification of cancer patients. Phase II will include coding the medical records of 400 newly diagnosed cancer patients and assessing the accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of coding. To test the generalizability of the instrument, one CR from three of the BJC-affiliated hospitals, will be asked to use the instrument to code co-morbidity for 100 consecutive cancer patient records. Phase III will include the preparation of the educational material. This work is significant because if cancer registrars are shown to be able to code co-morbidity accurately then this information can be included into standard oncology data collection efforts. Improved accuracy of cancer statistics and evaluation of treatment effectiveness will decrease mortality and improve quality of life for cancer patients.
| Piccirillo, Jay F; Tierney, Ryan M; Costas, Irene et al. (2004) Prognostic importance of comorbidity in a hospital-based cancer registry. JAMA 291:2441-7 |
