Using data linkage to report surgical treatment of breast cancer in Canada.

Background: National population information about the surgical treatment rate for primary cancers, including breast cancer, has remained a significant data gap in Canada. This gap has implications for cancer care planning and evaluating health system performance. New linkages between the Canadian Cancer Registry and hospital discharge records were conducted by Statistics Canada in 2016.

Using personal health insurance numbers to link the Canadian Cancer Registry and the Discharge Abstract Database.

Background: Linking cancer registry and administrative data can reveal health care use patterns among cancer patients. The Canadian Cancer Registry (CCR) contains personal health insurance numbers (HINs) that facilitate linkage to hospitalization information in the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD).

Data And Methods: Valid HINs, captured in the CCR or obtained through probabilistic linkages to provincial health insurance registries, were used to deterministically link prostate, female breast, colorectal and lung cancers diagnosed from 2005 through 2008 with the DAD for fiscal years 2004/2005 to 2010/2011.