Follow-Up of Bladder Cancer Patients From the New England Study of Environment and Health

Background:

Bladder cancer is a highly recurrent disease with substantial variability in survival.
Patients currently undergo repeated cystoscopy for many years after diagnosis.
There is a need to identify prognostic markers of recurrence and progression to minimize the need for routine screening and to identify patients who should be treated more aggressively.
The New England Study of Environment and Health (NESEH), a population-based case control study of 1,213 patients in Maine (ME), Vermont (VT), and New Hampshire (NH), provides an excellent opportunity study the clinical, host-genetic, and environmental determinants of prognosis.
Before launching a full-scale follow-up study, we need to determine the feasibility of following a population-based case series and of obtaining patient-related (vital status, exposures) and tumor-related (recurrence, progression, pathology) information.

Objectives:

To determine:

The completeness and quality of information that can be obtained for each patient. The most important issue is the extent to which medical records from private physicians will be needed, and whether private physicians are cooperative.
Our ability to identify next-of-kin (NOK) of deceased patients.
The proportion of patients (and NOK) that we can contact and enroll.
The ability of NOK to provide information on exposures.

Eligibility:

-Bladder cancer patients from ME who participated in the original case-control study (ages 30-79, newly diagnosed with histologically-confirmed carcinoma of the bladder, including carcinoma in situ), excluding those diagnosed after 2003 (5 years of follow-up are needed).

Design:

Conduct interviews with 40 living patients and the NOK of 9 deceased patients to update exposure information and find out where the patient received health care, the types of treatment received, and whether and when the disease recurred or progressed.
For living patients or NOK that we are unable to locate (an estimated 10 living patients and 9 NOK), request medical records from health care providers (to see if physicians will provide records in the absence of an authorization form).
Evaluate participant and physician response rates and the completeness of the medical history information obtained.
We will proceed with the full study if we obtain sufficient medical information for 70% of the living patients.
We will examine whether there were important issues related to deceased patients (e.g., NOK identification/enrollment, exposure assessment, access to medical records). If so, consider a simpler approach for this segment of the population (e.g., survival study based on NDI Plus and information available from the NESEH).