Who is implicated in the care of digestive cancers? A population-based study over a 25-year period.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to study health care delivery patterns during the initial phase of the management of digestive cancers in the Côte-d'Or area between 1976 and 2000 and to learn about the impact of patient- and disease-related features on trends in care patterns.

Method: Health care patterns were divided into 3 categories depending on whether care was delivered by public or private health care providers or a combination of the two. A polytomous logistic regression model was used to search for factors associated with the choice of health care delivery.