BACKGROUND Comorbidity complicates estimations of health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) using disease prevalences and disability weights from Burden of Disease studies. Usually, the exact amount of comorbidity is unknown and no disability weights are defined for comorbidity. METHODS Using data of the Dutch national burden of disease study, the effects of different methods to adjust for comor...

INTRODUCTION Healthcare management is oriented toward single diseases, yet multimorbidity is nevertheless the rule and there is a tendency for certain diseases to occur in clusters. This study sought to identify comorbidity patterns in patients with chronic diseases, by reference to number of comorbidities, age and sex, in a population receiving medical care from 129 general practitioners in Sp...

Background The presence of comorbid medical conditions can significantly affect a cancer patient's treatment options, quality of life, and survival. However, these important data are often lacking from population-based cancer registries. Leveraging routine linkage to hospital discharge data, a comorbidity score was calculated for patients in the California Cancer Registry (CCR) database. Meth...

INTRODUCTION We sought to characterize changes in healthcare spending associated with the onset of 22 endometriosis-related comorbidities. METHODS Women aged 18-49 years with endometriosis (N = 180,278) were extracted from 2006-2015 de-identified Clinformatics® DataMart claims data. For 22 comorbidities, comorbidity patients were identified on the basis of having a first comorbidity diagnosis...

BACKGROUND Comorbidity is very common among patients with cancer. Multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs) are increasingly the context within which cancer treatment decisions are made internationally. Little is known about how comorbidity is considered, or impacts decisions, in MDTs. METHODS A systematic literature review was conducted to evaluate previous evidence on consideration, and impact...

Objective. To determine the influence of comorbidity on survival in early-stage lung cancer patients treated with proton radiotherapy, using the Charlson Comorbidity Index. Study Design and Setting. Fifty-four non-small-cell lung cancer patients, treated prospectively in a phase II clinical trial with hypofractionated proton therapy, were analyzed retrospectively to assess their burden of comor...

BACKGROUND Measurement of comorbidity affects all variable axes that are considered in health care research: confounding, modifying, independent, and dependent variable. Comorbidity measurement particularly affects research involving older adults because they bear the disproportionate share of the comorbidity burden. METHODS We examine how well researchers can expect to segregate study partic...

Adequate control of comorbidity has long been recognized as a critical challenge in clinical epidemiology. Comorbidity scales reduce information about coexistent disease to a single index that is easy to comprehend and statistically efficient. These are the main advantages of an index over incorporating each disease into an analysis as an individual variable. Many study populations have a low p...

BACKGROUND Comorbidity has been shown to intensify health care utilization and to increase medical care costs for patients with diabetes. However, most studies have been focused on one health care service, mainly hospital care, or limited their analyses to one additional comorbid disease, or the data were based on self-reported questionnaires instead of health care registration data. The purpos...

BACKGROUND Head and neck cancer has increased incidence of comorbidity due to tobacco and alcohol use. METHODS Two hundred consecutive patients were included in this cross-sectional study. Data on clinico-demographic characteristics and comorbidity was extracted from case records. Comorbidity was assessed with Adult Comorbidity Evaluation 27 (ACE-27) and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI). Chan...