A population-based linked cohort of cancer and primary care data: A new source to study the management of cancer in primary care

In Australia, there are several data-linkage projects underway looking to improve the linkage between primary care data to that from hospitals, biobanks and registries. This new Dutch study has undertaken a similar project to link the Netherlands Cancer Registry (NCR) to the General Practitioner (GP) Database of the PHARMO Database Network in order to facilitate large-scale observational cancer research in the primary care setting. This new linked database contains information from 35,868 cancer patients. These data include demographics, tumour characteristics, primary health care use before and after cancer diagnosis including medication use, medical conditions, laboratory tests, and referrals.   Read the full article here.