Cancer patients who started receiving palliative care and died within one week after start of palliative care.

Number of patients who started palliative care and died within one week after start of palliative care.

Total number of patients diagnosed with cancer that died in the studied time period and who received palliative care services.

Patients with more than one invasive tumour (until 2015) Patients without a Belgian residence Patients without national social security number Patients for whom no Intermutualistic Agency (IMA) data of the year of death were available (=3.9%) Patients with an uncertain date of diagnosis Age at diagnosis <18 years

Other restrictions: Maximum 3 years of follow-up was applied. Analyses are limited to patients who died before January 1st of the third year following the year of incidence. For example: patients diagnosed in 2006 were included in case they died in 2006, 2007 or 2008; patients diagnosed in 2007 were included in case they died in 2007, 2008 or 2009, etc. These cohorts were defined in order to assure that for every diagnosis, the same follow-up period could be taken into account. By applying this definition, a bias induced by varying length of the follow-up period could be avoided.

None

Belgian Cancer Registry (BCR) linked with Intermutualistic Agency (IMA) data. The Belgian Cancer Registry is an exhaustive national register of cancer cases. The IMA dataset includes all information as collected by the seven existing health insurance agencies in Belgium. This database covers data on reimbursed medication and reimbursement for the use of health services, collected in the framework of the compulsory Belgian health care and benefits insurance program.

Public reporting.

kce.fgov.be/sites/default/files/2023-06/KCE370PerformanceRevisionframeworkconceptualReport.pdf

www.healthybelgium.be/metadata/hspa/eol2.pdf