National Cancer Data Linkage Platform of China: Design, Methods, and Application

BACKGROUND: The National Cancer Center (NCC) and China CDC cooperatively designed a National Cancer Data Linkage (NCDL) Platform to fulfill the task of sharing cancer outcome data through an automatic web-based system. METHODS: NCC and China CDC established a web-based NCDL Platform to link death information from China CDC with the cancer database from NCC. Overall, 76,708 cancer patients’ data were analyzed to assess the feasibility and match rate of the NCDL Platform for 7 major cancers. RESULTS: The function of the platform includes a data application and approval system, data linkage module, and results visualization system. Through the platform, 38.9% cases were identified as deaths cases from the NCDL Platform in the first 3 years after cancer diagnosis. The linkage rate was highest in liver cancer and lowest in breast cancer. CONCLUSIONS: The NCDL Platform provides a powerful and efficient way to link national vital statistics with national cancer programs’ data. Expanding cancer outcome data linkage may not only improve data collection efficiency, but also improve data use.