Background
Gippsland had a population of 271,266 covering an expansive area of 41,556 square kilometres. Compared to the average Victorian population; Gippsland has a higher proportion aged over 65 years, higher indigenous population, the lowest access to specialist medical practitioners and a greater proportion with a low socioeconomic status. We aim to establish a comprehensive and contemporaneous cancer services database that will help to provide companion and collaborative data for our clinical trials program.
Method
Retrospective audit of all new patients with solid organ malignancy referred to the Gippsland Cancer Care Centre (GCCC) and inpatient admissions to Latrobe Regional Hospital (LRH) in 2020. This was then stratified into cancer types and treatment outcomes. A prospective database was then produced using REDcap for ongoing collection of data for oncology and heamatology patients.
Results
In 2020 there were 371 referrals to GCCC with a mean referral to first appointment time of 11 days. The top five cancer types were breast(23%), lung(21%), colorectal(16%), upper gastrointestinal(13%) and prostate(8%). 220(59%) of these patients proceeded on to have chemotherapy delivered at LRH, with 39(10%) receiving concurrent chemo-radiation. There were 751 admission events to LRH for oncology and heamatology patients; with lung(26%), upper GI(14%), colorectal(12%) and prostate(10%) being the most common.
Conclusion
The cancer types that were referred to GCCC were comparable to the most common cancers diagnosed in Australia. Some cancer types were under-represented as they are not referred to medical oncology. With this comprehensive database we are able to target the implementation of trials that meets the needs of our community/patient population. It has been particularly useful in helping to assess feasibility for future clinical trials as part of our collaborative partnership in the Teletrials project.