Cálculo automatizado de la supervivencia relativa vía web. El proyecto WAERS del Instituto Catalán de Oncología

Abstract

The most commonly used measure to estimate cancer survival is relative survival, defined as the ratio between observed and expected survival. Expected survival is computed on the basis of the mortality of a reference population. Mortality tables for the general population are not always available and their calculation requires specific software. For that purpose, the Catalan Institute of Oncology developed WAERS (Web-Assisted Estimation of Relative Survival), a web-based application that estimates the relative survival for a cohort of patients. The user prepares data in a specific format and sends them to a remote server located at the Catalan Institute of Oncology. This server computes relative survival and returns a file with the results to the electronic address supplied by the user. By means of this application, hospital- and population-based Spanish cancer registries and registries of other diseases can estimate relative survival of their cohorts using their reference population (province or autonomous community). This application could also be useful for cohort mortality studies.