ArticleBMC pregnancy and childbirth2013
Using hospital discharge data to identify incident pregnancy-associated cancers: a validation study.
Article in BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of pregnancy-associated breast cancer incidence rate.BMC cancer · 2025Pooled it
- Cancer and Pregnancy: Update of Estimates in Italy by Linking Data from Cancer Registries and Hospital Discharge Records.Cancers · 2025Article
- Article
- Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Clinical Practice Intervention in Increasing Obesity Data Recording at a Western Australian Country Health Service Hospital: A Quasi-Experimental Controlled Trial.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2021Article
- Frequency of Pregnancy-Associated Cancer: A Systematic Review of Population-Based Studies.Cancers · 2020Review
- Agreement between referral information and discharge diagnoses according to Norwegian elective treatment guidelines - a cross-sectional study.BMC health services research · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPregnancy-associated cancer is associated with maternal morbidities and adverse pregnancy outcomes, and is reported to be increasing. Hospital discharge data have the potential to provide timely information on cancer incidence, which is central to evaluation and improvement of clinical care for women. This study aimed to assess the validity of hospital data for identifying incident pregnancy-associated cancers compared with incident cancers from an Australian population-based statutory cancer registry.
methodsBirth data from 2001-2008, comprised 470,277 women with 679,736 maternities, were linked to cancer registry and hospitalisation records to identify newly diagnosed cancers during pregnancy or within 12 months of delivery. Two hospital-identified cancer groups were examined; "index cancer hospitalisation" - first cancer admission per woman per pregnancy and "all cancer hospitalisations" -the total number of hospitalisations with a cancer diagnosis and women could have multiple hospitalisations during pregnancy. The latter replicates a scenario where identification of individuals is not possible and hospitalisations are used as the unit of analysis.
resultsThe incidence of pregnancy-associated cancer (according to cancer registry) was 145.4/100,000 maternities. Incidence of cancer was substantially over-estimated when using hospitalisations as the unit of analysis (incidence rate ratio, IRR 1.7) and under-estimated when using the individual (IRR 0.8). Overall, the sensitivity of "index cancer hospitalisation" was 60.4%, positive predictive value (PPV) 77.7%, specificity and negative predictive value both 100%. Melanoma ascertainment was only 36.1% and breast cancer 62.9%. For other common cancers sensitivities ranged from 72.1% to 78.6% and PPVs 56.4% to 87.3%.
conclusionAlthough hospital data provide another timely source of cancer identification, the validity is insufficient to obtain cancer incidence estimates for the obstetric population.
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