Information on cancer recurrence is important for patients, healthcare professionals and health systems, but recurrence is not routinely recorded by most population-based cancer registries. This JA PreventNCD-supported study explores how existing cancer registry and administrative healthcare data can be linked to estimate breast cancer recurrence at population level.
The study followed 5,825 women diagnosed with stage I–III breast cancer in northeast Italy between 2004 and 2010. By linking cancer registry records with hospital and outpatient healthcare databases, the researchers identified treatment and procedure patterns indicating recurrence and followed women for a median of 13.5 years. The estimated cumulative incidence of recurrence was 13.4% at five years and 20.8% at ten years, with substantial differences according to age, stage at diagnosis and breast cancer subtype.
The findings demonstrate the potential of routinely collected healthcare data to strengthen long-term cancer monitoring without relying solely on resource-intensive manual registry follow-up. The authors suggest that the methodology could be applied in other Italian and European settings and potentially adapted to other cancers. More systematic information on recurrence can support follow-up planning, healthcare resource allocation and a better understanding of long-term outcomes for people living after a cancer diagnosis.
Read the full paper in The Breast:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.breast.2025.104487