Woo Christine, Cioffi Gino N, Bej Taissa A, Wilson Brigid, Briggs Janet M, Markt Sarah C, Schumacher Fredrick R, Kruchko Carol, Waite Kristin A, Nabors L Burt, Nock Charles J, Jump Robin L P, Barnholtz-Sloan Jill S
Healthcare Leadership Talent Institute, Veterans Health Administration, Cleveland, OH.
College of Public Health, Kent State University, Kent, OH.
JCO Clin Cancer Inform. 2021 Sep;5:985-994. doi: 10.1200/CCI.21.00052.
State and national cancer registries do not systematically include Veteran data, which hinders analysis of the diagnosis patterns, treatment trajectories, and clinical outcomes of Veterans compared with non-Veteran populations. This study used data matching approaches to compare cases included in the Oncology Domain of the Veterans Affairs (VA) Corporate Data Warehouse and the Ohio Cancer Incidence Surveillance System, using brain tumors as an exemplar.
We used direct data matching, on the basis of protected health information (PHI) common to both databases, to compare primary brain tumors from Veterans and non-Veterans diagnosed from 2000 to 2016. Working with this matched data set, we used six data elements that did not contain PHI, to assess the feasibility of using deterministic data matching to compare Veterans and non-Veterans.
Between 2000 and 2016, 223 Veterans from Ohio had a primary brain tumor; of those, 55 (25%) were not included in Ohio Cancer Incidence Surveillance System. Direct data matching showed that Veterans experienced a greater proportion of glioblastomas (41%) compared with non-Veterans (21%). Sex did not account for this difference. Deterministic data matching within the matched data set found that 75% (126 of 168) of Veterans had exact matches for at least five of six non-PHI variables common to both databases.
This study indicated that direct and deterministic data matching approaches to compare brain tumors in Veterans and in non-Veterans is feasible. This approach has the potential to promote comparisons of the distribution of tumors, the impact of chemical and environmental exposures, treatment trajectories, and clinical outcomes among Veteran and non-Veteran populations with brain tumors as well as other cancers and rare diseases.
州和国家癌症登记处未系统纳入退伍军人数据，这妨碍了对退伍军人与非退伍军人人群的诊断模式、治疗轨迹和临床结局进行分析。本研究采用数据匹配方法，以脑肿瘤为例，比较退伍军人事务部（VA）企业数据仓库肿瘤学领域和俄亥俄州癌症发病率监测系统中纳入的病例。
我们基于两个数据库共有的受保护健康信息（PHI）进行直接数据匹配，以比较2000年至2016年诊断出的退伍军人和非退伍军人的原发性脑肿瘤。利用这个匹配数据集，我们使用六个不包含PHI的数据元素，评估使用确定性数据匹配来比较退伍军人和非退伍军人的可行性。
2000年至2016年期间，俄亥俄州有223名退伍军人患有原发性脑肿瘤；其中55人（25%）未被纳入俄亥俄州癌症发病率监测系统。直接数据匹配显示，与非退伍军人（21%）相比，退伍军人中胶质母细胞瘤的比例更高（41%）。性别不能解释这种差异。在匹配数据集中进行的确定性数据匹配发现，75%（168人中的126人）的退伍军人在两个数据库共有的六个非PHI变量中至少有五个完全匹配。
本研究表明，采用直接和确定性数据匹配方法比较退伍军人和非退伍军人的脑肿瘤是可行的。这种方法有可能促进对患有脑肿瘤以及其他癌症和罕见疾病的退伍军人和非退伍军人人群之间肿瘤分布、化学和环境暴露影响、治疗轨迹和临床结局的比较。
