Abstract
BackgroundThe knowledge of cancer burden in the population, its time trends, and the possibility of international comparison is an important starting point for cancer programs. A reliable interactive tool describing cancer epidemiology in children and adolescents has been nonexistent in the Czech Republic until recently.ObjectiveThe goal of this study is to develop a new web portal entitled the Czech Childhood Cancer Information System (CCCIS), which would provide information on childhood cancer epidemiology in the Czech Republic.MethodsData on childhood cancers have been obtained from the Czech National Cancer Registry. These data were validated using the clinical database of childhood cancer patients and subsequently combined with data from the National Register of Hospitalised Patients and with data from death certificates. These validated data were then used to determine the incidence and survival rates of childhood cancer patients aged 0 to 19 years who were diagnosed in the period 1994 to 2016 (N=9435). Data from death certificates were used to monitor long-term mortality trends. The technical solution is based on the robust PHP development Symfony framework, with the PostgreSQL system used to accommodate the data basis.ResultsThe web portal has been available for anyone since November 2019, providing basic information for experts (ie, analyses and publications) on individual diagnostic groups of childhood cancers. It involves an interactive tool for analytical reporting, which provides information on the following basic topics in the form of graphs or tables: incidence, mortality, and overall survival. Feedback was obtained and the accuracy of outputs published on the CCCIS portal was verified using the following methods: the validation of the theoretical background and the user testing.ConclusionsWe developed software capable of processing data from multiple sources, which is freely available to all users and makes it possible to carry out automated analyses even for users without mathematical background; a simple selection of a topic to be analyzed is required from the user.
Highlights
Childhood and adolescent cancers are classified among rare diseases as their incidence rates are orders of magnitude lower than cancer incidence rates in adults
The main issue is a different classification system of childhood cancers, which takes into consideration differences between childhood and adult cancers; unlike the classification system of adult cancers, which is based on the site of the primary tumor, the classification system of childhood cancers is primarily based on morphology
Data on childhood cancers, which are used on the portal, have been obtained from the Czech National Cancer Registry (CNCR), which is administered by IHIS CR [3]
Summary
Childhood and adolescent cancers (or childhood cancers for short) are classified among rare diseases as their incidence rates are orders of magnitude lower than cancer incidence rates in adults. The web portal SVOD (System for Visualisation of Oncology Data) [1] provides representative epidemiological data on cancer in the Czech Republic It is not entirely convenient for childhood cancers. Methods: Data on childhood cancers have been obtained from the Czech National Cancer Registry These data were validated using the clinical database of childhood cancer patients and subsequently combined with data from the National Register of Hospitalised Patients and with data from death certificates. These validated data were used to determine the incidence and survival rates of childhood cancer patients aged 0 to 19 years who were diagnosed in the period 1994 to 2016 (N=9435). Conclusions: We developed software capable of processing data from multiple sources, which is freely available to all users and makes it possible to carry out automated analyses even for users without mathematical background; a simple selection of a topic to be analyzed is required from the user
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