Use of new treatment modalities for non-small cell lung cancer care in the Medicare population.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Many older patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) do not receive curative therapy. New surgical techniques and radiation therapy modalities, such as video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS), potentially allow more patients to receive treatment. The adoption of these techniques and their impact on access to cancer care among Medicare beneficiaries with stage I NSCLC are unknown.

Methods

We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results-Medicare database to identify patients with stage I NSCLC diagnosed between 1998 and 2007. We assessed temporal trends and created hierarchical generalized linear models of the relationship between patient, clinical, and regional factors and type of treatment.

Results

The sample comprised 13,458 p

SUBMITTER: Vest MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3566996 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature