Improving the Accuracy and Precision of Disease Identification When Utilizing Ehr Data for Research: the Case for Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Objective: We assessed the performance of ICD codes to identify patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a large academic health system and determined whether employing an algorithm using a combination of ICD codes could deliver higher accuracy and precision than single ICD codes in identifying HCC cases using electronic health record (EHR) data.

Results: The use of a single ICD code entry for HCC (ICD-9-CM 155.0 or ICD-10-CM C22.

Longitudinal trajectories of adiposity-related measures from age 2-5 years in a population of low-income Hispanic children.

Background: We estimated longitudinal trajectories of body mass index (BMI) z-score and percentile, weight for height (WFH) z-score and percentile, and percentage of the 95th BMI percentile (BMIp95) among low-income Hispanic children ages 2-5 years to provide normative data for this population and compare the behavior of different measures.

Methods: Longitudinal height and weight measurements obtained from 18,072 Hispanic children aged 2-5 years enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children in Los Angeles County were analyzed. Trajectories of adiposity-related measures were estimated using mixed models, stratified by sex and BMI percentile at age 2 years.