title: Identifying incident oral and pharyngeal cancer cases using Medicare claims.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Baseline and trend data for oral and pharyngeal cancer incidence is limited. A new algorithm was derived using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database to create an algorithm to identify incident cases of oral and pharyngeal cancer using Medicare claims.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a split-sample approach, Medicare claims' procedure and diagnosis codes were used to generate a new algorithm to identify oral and pharyngeal cancer cases and validate its operating characteristics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The algorithm had high sensitivity (95%) and specificity (97%), which varied little by age group, sex, and race and ethnicity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Examples of the utility of this algorithm and its operating characteristics include using it to derive baseline and trend estimates of oral and pharyngeal cancer incidence. Such measures could be used to provide incidence estimates where they are lacking or to serve as comparator estimates for tumor registries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, The University of Kansas Medical Center, The University of Kansas Cancer Center, MSN 1026, 3901 Rainbow Blvd, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA. jmahnken@kumc.edu
authors.forename: Jonathan D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Mahnken
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Keighley
authors.forename: Douglas A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Girod
authors.forename: Xueyi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Mayo
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007345:Insurance Claim Review; D008297:Male; D006278:Medicare; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010610:Pharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D018426:SEER Program; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology