Specialty Bias in the NCDB

Abstract

systolic blood pressure [SBP], diastolic blood pressure [DBP], and pulse pressure [PP]) were evaluated for all available time points. Course start date of radiation represented day 0 in the irradiated aorta and other radiation cohorts, while the average number of days from the first occurrence of initial diagnosis to course start date for respective cancers was considered day 0 in the unirradiated aorta cohort. Interrupted time series analyses were conducted using custom R scripts, with pairwise statistical comparisons by t-test. Results: Within the cohort we observed no significant differences in pre vs. post-treatment changes in SBP, DBP, or PP for patients that did not receive radiation to the aorta across all disease sites. Similarly, there was no change in these metrics among patients with prostate cancer, whether or not they received brachytherapy. Interestingly, we observed no difference in pre-vs. post-treatment changes in SBP, DBP, or PP in patients with esophageal, pancreas, or gastric malignancies receiving radiation to the aorta -with the understanding that this is an unselected cohort regarding actual site of radiation, as we did not exclude patients receiving radiation to distant metastatic sites Conclusion: Our preliminary analysis demonstrates no evidence to suggest that presumptive radiation dose to the aorta results in significant changes to SBP, DBP, or PP in a mixed cohort of cancer patients.