Exploring the causes of blood cancer and treatment side-effects
Why did we do this study?
It is important to understand why different blood cancers develop, and how treatment affects patients. Some blood cancers may be linked to certain medical conditions, for example patients with rheumatoid arthritis are at increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Cancer treatments may also cause side-effects, which can occur immediately, and may result in long-term effects on patients. We carries out a study within YHHN to investigate these issues.
What were our aims?
- To explore whether certain medical conditions or procedures occurred more often people with blood cancer before their diagnosis compared to people of the same age and sex in the general populationand
- To explore whether there is an increase in health-related events in patients with a blood cancer prior to diangosis.
What did we do?
Using data from YHHN linked to NHS Digital, we compared the health and medical history of patients with blood cancer to the general population. The health records included inpatient hospital stays and outpatient appointments, hospital attendances, cancer diagnoses and deaths from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the National Cancer Registration & Analysis Service (NCRAS).
To investigate any differences, NHS Digital matched each YHHN patient to ten people born in the same year who did not have a blood cancer, meaning the same information was available for both groups. By comparing the groups we could identify similarities and differences between patients and the general population.
What did we find?