Assigning cancer stage to patients using administrative claims data: an example for colon and rectal cancers

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Novel multinomial logistic regression models successfully predicted incident colorectal cancer patients' stages at diagnosis using administrative claims data alone. When applied to FFS and commercial populations, use of model-predicted staging confirmed that colorectal cancer patients' costs increase substantially as stage at diagnosis increases. This suggests earlier diagnosis of colorectal cancer could reduce treatment costs.