Epidemiology of Brain Cancer: Longitudinal Studies for Contract Health Service Delivery Areas

• Activity Number: 86
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, July 29, 2012 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Keshav Pokhrel*+ and Chris P. Tsokos
• Companies: University of South Florida and University of South Florida
• Keywords: brain Cancer ; mortality ; nonparametric smoothing ; exponential smoothing ; state-space models ; Epidemiology

Abstract

An increasing incidence of brain cancer has been reported for the last three decades. In this study of brain cancer incidence, mortality and patient survival in the US, we attempt to explore the information on rate function in longitudinal studies by examining data provided by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. Population-based data from the SEER Program are used to calculate the incidence, mortality and survival rates for people with brain cancer. We use annual unadjusted brain cancer mortality rates from 1969 to 2008 in 5-year age groups (0-04, 5-09, 10-14,15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84) for Contract Health Service Delivery Areas (CHSDA) and compare the epidemiological effect with respect to the respective demographics. Age-specific mortality curves were obtained using nonparametric smoothing methods. We apply functional time series models on age-specific brain cancer mortality rates for each group of patients, and forecast their mortality curves using exponential smoothing state-space models with damping.