Bladder cancer and the National Cancer Data Base: New insight or misinformation?

Small-cell neuroendocrine tumor of the bladder: Unexpected long-term survival with carboplatin-etoposide therapy in a patient with metastatic stage disease

Neuroendocrine small-cell bladder cancer is an extremely rare and aggressive entity, it constitutes <1% of all bladder malignancies. The small-cell neuroendocrine histological variant has a worse prognosis than the classical subtypes. A case of a 53-year-old female consulting with gross hematuria is presented. Cystoscopy revealed a solid aspect lesion involving the posterior wall and dome that was resected. Histopathological findings showed small-cell pure variant carcinoma, high grade, with lymph, vascular, and perineural infiltration, infiltrating the muscle layer. The extension study made by hole body computed tomography scan, showed evidence of multiple lymph nodes and multiple visceral radiological involvements, with pulmonary, hepatic, and peritoneal implants. More than 10 years later, after receiving nine cycles of carboplatin-etoposide remains in complete remission and without radiological evidence of the disease. This is, to our knowledge, one of the longest disease-free survival cases in metastatic small-cell bladder cancer published nowadays.

Identifying and Codifying Complications after Radical Cystectomy: Comparison of Administrative Diagnostic and Procedure Codes, and Clinical Chart Review

PURPOSE

To our knowledge the reliability of administrative claims codes to report postoperative radical cystectomy complications has not been examined. We compared complications identified by claims data to those abstracted from clinical chart review following radical cystectomy.

METHODS

We manually reviewed the charts of 268 patients treated with radical cystectomy between 2014 and 2016 for 30-day complications and queried administrative complication coding using 805 ICD-9/10 codes. Complications were categorized. Using Cohen κ statistics we assessed agreement between the 2 methods of complication reporting for 1 or more postoperative complications overall, categorical complications and complications stratified by the top quartile length of hospital stay and patients who were readmitted.

RESULTS

At least 1 or more complications were recorded in 122 patients (45.5%) through manual chart review and 80 (29.9%) were recorded via claim coding data with a concordance rate of κ=0.16, indicating weak agreement. Concordance was generally weak for categorical complication rates (range 0.05 to 0.36). However, when examining only the top length of stay quartile, 1 or more complications were reported in 32 patients (65%) by the manual chart review and in 12 (25%) via coding data with a concordance rate of κ=-0.2. Agreement was weak, similar to the total cohort.

CONCLUSIONS

Manual chart review and claim code identification of complications are not highly concordant even when stratified by patients with an extended length of stay, who are known to have more frequent complications. Researchers and administrators should be aware of these differences and exercise caution when interpreting complication reports.

Real-world data: towards achieving the achievable in cancer care

The use of data from the real world to address clinical and policy-relevant questions that cannot be answered using data from clinical trials is garnering increased interest. Indeed, data from cancer registries and linked treatment records can provide unique insights into patients, treatments and outcomes in routine oncology practice. In this Review, we explore the quality of real-world data (RWD), provide a framework for the use of RWD and draw attention to the methodological pitfalls inherent to using RWD in studies of comparative effectiveness. Randomized controlled trials and RWD remain complementary forms of medical evidence; studies using RWD should not be used as substitutes for clinical trials. The comparison of outcomes between nonrandomized groups of patients who have received different treatments in routine practice remains problematic. Accordingly, comparative effectiveness studies need to be designed and interpreted very carefully. With due diligence, RWD can be used to identify and close gaps in health care, offering the potential for short-term improvement in health-care systems by enabling them to achieve the achievable.

National cancer database analysis of outcomes in pediatric glioblastoma

Glioblastoma in children is an aggressive disease with no defined standard therapy. We evaluated hospital‐based demographic and survival patterns obtained through the National Cancer Database to better characterize children with glioblastoma. Our study identified 1173 patients from 0 to 19 years of age between 1998 and 2011. Comparisons were made among demographics, clinical characteristics, treatment, and survival variables. Fifty‐four percent of patients were over 10 years of age. Approximately 80% of patients underwent either partial or complete resection. Adjuvant therapy was used variably, and its use increased with patient age. Forty‐eight percent of patients received the combination of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, and 4% did not receive any treatment. As expected, patients ≤5 years of age had better 5‐year survival than those ages 6–10 (P = 0.01) or 11–19 years (P = 0.0077). Other factors associated with poor survival included black race and central tumor location. Better outcomes were associated with treatment that included surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy compared to any other treatment combinations. Radiotherapy had no impact on survival in the 0 to 10‐year‐old age group, but was associated with improved survival for patients 11–19 years. We report an extensive demographic and survival analysis of pediatric glioblastoma. The observed differences likely reflect variances in tumor biology and likelihood of treatment receipt. Improved survival was associated with the use of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Radiation therapy was not associated with survival in patients younger than 10 years of age.