Leveraging Clinical Informatics Tools to Extract Cumulative Anthracycline Exposure, Measure Cardiovascular Outcomes, and Assess Guideline Adherence for Children With Cancer

Cardiovascular disease is a significant cause of late morbidity and mortality in survivors of childhood cancer. Clinical informatics tools could enhance provider adherence to echocardiogram guidelines for early detection of late-onset cardiomyopathy. METHODS: Cancer registry data were linked to electronic health record data. Structured query language facilitated the construction of anthracycline-exposed cohorts at a single institution. Primary outcomes included the data quality from automatic anthracycline extraction, sensitivity of International Classification of Disease coding for heart failure, and adherence to echocardiogram guideline recommendations. RESULTS: The final analytic cohort included 385 pediatric oncology patients diagnosed between July 1, 2013, and December 31, 2018, among whom 194 were classified as no anthracycline exposure, 143 had low anthracycline exposure (< 250 mg/m(2)), and 48 had high anthracycline exposure (≥ 250 mg/m(2)). Manual review of anthracycline exposure was highly concordant (95%) with the automatic extraction. Among the unexposed group, 15% had an anthracycline administered at an outside institution not captured by standard query language coding. Manual review of echocardiogram parameters and clinic notes yielded a sensitivity of 75%, specificity of 98%, and positive predictive value of 68% for International Classification of Disease coding of heart failure. For patients with anthracycline exposure, 78.5% (n = 62) were adherent to guideline recommendations for echocardiogram surveillance. There were significant association with provider adherence and race and ethnicity (P = .047), and 50% of patients with Spanish as their primary language were adherent compared with 90% of patients with English as their primary language (P = .003). CONCLUSION: Extraction of treatment exposures from the electronic health record through clinical informatics and integration with cancer registry data represents a feasible approach to assess cardiovascular disease outcomes and adherence to guideline recommendations for survivors.