Radiation therapy utilization and capacity

Radiation therapy capacity

Definition: Per capita linear accelerator availability

Numerator: Number of operational linear accelerators (available for radiation therapy) in province

Denominator: Total provincial population

Data source: Reported by provincial cancer agencies or equivalent to the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. Population from Annual Population estimates for Canada, provinces and territories, accessed from Statistics Canada.

Measurement timeframe: 2012 calendar years

Stratification variables: Province

Provinces submitting data: AB, BC, MB, NB, NL, NS, ON, PE, QC, SK

General notes:

1. LINACS were pro-rated for partial availability.^211-213

Radiation therapy utilization

Definition: Percentage of cancer cases receiving radiation therapy within 2 years of diagnosis

Numerator: Total number of cancer incident cases diagnosed in 2010 who have received radiation therapy within two years of diagnosis.

Numerator inclusions: All cases who have received radiation therapy regardless of treatment intent. Radiation therapy was not limited to the primary tumour site.

Denominator: Total number of cancer incident cases diagnosed in 2010

Denominator exclusions:

1. In situ and borderline cases;
2. Non-melanoma skin cancer (ICD-O3 morphology codes M8050-8110 with site codes C44.0 to C44.9)

Data source: Reported by provincial cancer agencies or equivalent to the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer

Measurement timeframe: 2010 diagnosis years

Stratification variables: Province

Provinces submitting data: MB, NS, SK, NB, AB, NL, BC, PE

Province specific notes:

AB: If the Alberta Cancer Registry is notified of out of province treatment to provincial residents or it is mentioned in the documents, it will be coded and included. Data include both External Beam and Brachytherapy. Treatment information is based on initial and post-initial treatments in the ACR and EMR. And it includes all initially planned RT (ACR) and post-initial RT, including radiation therapy for metastasis, progression of a palliative intent (EMR). Data exclude radiation theraphy associated to another primary tumour coded on the ACR.
BC: Majority of radiation therapy to sites other than the primary tumour site are excluded but there may be a few cases that can’t be excluded without having to go through all the data manually.
PE: Out of province data are not excluded but the numbers would be so small that it is likely not relevant.

General notes:

• Treatments associated with brachytherapy treatment are included.
• The “incident case” is at the patient/ primary disease level as per Canadian Cancer Registry. The same person with 2 separate primaries would be treated as 2 incident cases (within applicable CCR/NAACCR rules^viii).
• Cases for patients under 18 years of age (at diagnosis) were excluded.
• Radiation therapy start date – diagnosis date <=730 days