Characteristics of cancer diagnoses and staging in South Western Victoria: A rural perspective

Abstract

The Evaluation of Cancer Outcomes study is an important initiative that collects information about newly diagnosed cases of cancer more detailed than is currently collected by the Cancer Council of Victoria. Future studies will build on this base dataset and provide valuable insight into the regional and rural experience of treatment pathways after diagnosis. More work is needed to bring more services to our rural patients, or more education is needed to encourage the recording of tumour staging.

Rural and Urban Differences in Stage at Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer in Hunan Province, China

“…As our results demonstrated, the mean ages of rural and urban patients were 69.3 and 71.2, respectively. In Baade and Youlden’s study (Banks et al., 2014), the majority of PCa cases are diagnosed between 50 and 79 years of age in Asian-Pacific regions. Of those countries, incidence rates rose sharply after 50 years of age in Australia and New Zealand, while the increase was more pronounced after 60 years of age in Japan and South Korea.…”

“…The global burden of prostate cancer (PCa) is expected to reach 1.7 million new cases by 2030 (Ferlay et al., 2010), with higher stage at diagnosis in less developed countries (Hebert, Ghumare, & Gupta, 2006; Zhang, Wu, Guo, & Zhao, 2009) compared with more affluent ones (Banks et al., 2014; Jemal et al., 2011). The PCa stage is a key predictor of prognosis.…”

Cancer diagnosed in the Emergency Department of a Regional Health Service

“…The Evaluation of Cancer Outcomes (ECO) study is an initiative that was piloted in 2008 with its first complete year of data in 2009 . ECO was the first regional data collection under the Victorian Cancer Outcomes Network project with the aim to extend population‐based cancer data to include clinical and treatment information.…”

“…The Evaluation of Cancer Outcomes study is unique, capturing all newly diagnosed cancer cases across the south‐west region of Victoria . Linkage of this data source to ED records has allowed exploration of patient information for those presenting to ED resulting in cancer diagnosis.…”

Improving recruitment to clinical trials for regional and rural cancer patients through a regionally based clinical trials network

“…Although one‐third of the Australian population live in rural and regional areas, there is ongoing inequity in access to care among regional Australians 2 . Over the decade to 2010, the disparity in cancer outcomes between rural and urban patients remained unchanged with 7% excess mortality (equating to about 9000 additional rural deaths) 3,4 . Until recently, clinical trials were almost exclusively conducted in metropolitan health institutions.…”