Hospital factors and patient characteristics in the treatment of colorectal cancer: a population based study.

Background: The present study focuses on the analysis of social, clinical and hospital characteristics that can lead to disparities in the management and outcome of care. To that end, indicators of the quality of initial treatment delivered to newly-diagnosed colorectal cancer patients in a North-Western Region of Italy, were investigated using administrative data.

Methods: The cohort includes all incident colorectal cancer patients (N = 24,187) selected by a validated algorithm from the Piedmont Hospital Discharge Record system over an 8-year period (2000-2007).