Person with cancer—comorbidities, Colinet defined comorbidities code N[N]

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Health, Standard 08/05/2014

Value domain attributes

Representational attributes

Collection and usage attributes

Record each comorbid condition, as defined by the Colinet criteria, present in the patient at the time of diagnosis for lung cancer.

The criteria were developed specifically for non-small cell lung cancer where comorbidities may be an important variable in treatment decisions and prognosis, however, record each comorbid condition for all lung cancers.

Colinet criteria for comorbidities

CODE 1   Cardiovascular

Defined as the presence of one or more of the following:

• congestive heart failure,
• ischaemic cardiopathy with/without myocardial infarction,
• severe valvular cardiopathy,
• arrhythmia requiring chronic treatment,
• history of cerebrovascular disease,
• hypertension, and/or
• peripheral vascular disease

CODE 2   Respiratory

Defined as the presence of one or more of the following:

• history of tuberculosis,
• history of pleural effusion or pneumonia,
• asthma,
• pulmonary embolism,
• chronic pulmonary insufficiency (as defined by a chronic hypoxemia less than 60 mmHg, and/or
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) inducing a FEV1 less than 1.5l)

CODE 3   Neoplastic

Defined as a previous personal history of cancer excluding basal cell carcinoma of the skin and in situ carcinoma of the cervix.

CODE 4   Renal insufficiency

Defined as a creatinine clearance lower than 60 ml/min­.

CODE 5   Diabetes mellitus

Defined as diabetes treated with either oral hypoglycaemics or insulin.

CODE 6   Alcoholism

Defined as a daily consumption of:

• more than 80g of alcohol (8 standard drinks) for men
• more than 40g of alcohol (4 standard drinks) for women

CODE 7   Tobacco consumption

Defined as a lifelong consumption of an equivalent of at least 100 cigarettes.

The Colinet system provides criteria to define comorbidities and a scoring system whereby each comorbidity is weighted and assigned a score, then scores are added to provide the Simplified Comorbidity Score (SCS). For instance, Colinet et al. 2005 found that an SCS greater than 9 was found to be an independent prognostic factor of poor outcome in NSCLC (non-small-cell lung cancer).

Source and reference attributes

Data element attributes

Collection and usage attributes

Comorbidities may influence treatment decisions and patient outcomes; they may be used to adjust outcome statistics when evaluating patient survival and other outcomes.

Comorbidities are generally used with cancer patients to refer to conditions not related to the cancer, and in epidemiology to indicate the coexistence of two or more disease processes.

Source and reference attributes

Relational attributes