WAERS: an application for Web-assisted estimation of relative survival.
Net cancer survival estimation is usually performed by computing relative survival (RS), which is defined as the ratio between observed and expected survival rates. The mortality of a reference population is required in order to compute the expected survival rate, which can be performed using a variety of statistical packages. A new Web interface to compute RS, called WAERS, has been developed by the Catalan Institute of Oncology. The reference population is first selected, and then the RS of a cohort is computed. A remote server is used for this purpose. A mock example serves to illustrate the use of the tool with a hypothetical cohort, for which RS is estimated based on three different reference populations (a province of Spain, an autonomous community (Region), and the entire Spanish population). At present, only mortality tables for different areas of Spain are available. Future improvements of this application will include mortality tables of Latin American and European Union countries, and stratified (control variable) analysis. This application can be also useful for cohort mortality studies and for registries of several diseases.
Clèries
Ramon
R
Servei d'Epidemiologia i Registre del Càncer, Institut Català d'Oncologia, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat-Spain, Barcelona, Spain. r.cleries@iconcologia.net
Valls
Joan
J
Esteban
Laura
L
Gálvez
Jordi
J
Pareja
Laura
L
Sanz
Xavier
X
Alliste
Luisa
L
Martínez
José Miguel
JM
Moreno
Víctor
V
Bosch
Xavier
X
Borràs
Josep Maria
JM
Ribes
Josepa Maria
JM
D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology; D016019:Survival Analysis; D015996:Survival Rate