A new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute has found that Medicare claims accurately reflect chemotherapy use in elderly Medicare beneficiaries with breast or lung cancers.

Because the elderly are underrepresented in clinical trials of treatments for cancer, the benefits and toxicities of chemotherapy in elderly patients may be different than in clinical trial participants. Medicare claims may be a source of observational data for studies of chemotherapy in the elderly because Medicare reimburses for intravenous administration of chemotherapy. However, this type of data needs to be validated before such studies can be completed.

To determine the accuracy with which data from Medicare claims measure chemotherapy use in elderly Medicare beneficiaries with cancer, Elizabeth B. Lamont, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues performed a criterion validation study by comparing Medicare claim data with gold-standard clinical trial data for 175 elderly cancer patients treated on two clinical trials. They found that the crude sensitivity (proportion of true-positive results) for chemotherapy administration was 93% and that individual chemotherapy agents had similarly high sensitivities, from 81% for carboplatin to 91% for cyclophosphamide.

The authors conclude that administrative Medicare claims data appear to be a valid source of information for chemotherapy administered to elderly Medicare beneficiaries with cancer and thus may be used for studies of chemotherapy use and outcome in the elderly.

SOURCE:
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, July 20, 2005