Study shows survival benefits for cancer patients when treated in certified centers
26.04.2022 10:55
A large-scale study based on nationwide AOK billing data and data from four regional clinical cancer registries shows a survival advantage for patients with cancer who are treated in certified centers. For all eight cancers examined, their mortality rate was lower than for patients in hospitals that were not certified by the German Cancer Society (DKG). The data have been evaluated over the past three years as part of the innovation fund project “Effectiveness of care in oncology centers” (WiZen) and were presented to the public on April 26, 2022 as part of a symposium of the participating partners in Berlin.
According to the analysis of cancer registry data, the survival advantage from center treatment was particularly large for cervical cancer (minus 25.9 percent mortality), neuro-oncological tumors (minus 15.8 percent), lung cancer (minus 15.0 percent) and breast cancer (minus 11. 7 percent). Positive effects with statistical significance continued to be seen for colorectal carcinoma, head and neck tumors, prostate cancer and the group of gynecological tumors. The lower mortality in the certified centers was evident in both the cancer registry data and the health insurance data. “Our results support the hypothesis across different types of cancer that patients in DKG-certified clinics have better chances of survival than in non-certified hospitals,” says Prof. Dr. med. Jochen Schmitt, director of the leading center for evidence-based healthcare (ZEGV) at the Carl Gustav Carus University Hospital Dresden and the Medical Faculty of the TU Dresden. “Through the risk-adjusted analysis of a nationwide cohort and by comparing the health insurance data with the cancer registry data, we are strengthening the evidence for the benefits of center treatment. “With our project, we are also providing a blueprint for future monitoring of oncological care in Germany,” says Schmitt.
Patients with lower tumor stages in particular benefit