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SDO Lombardia

Valid results obtained with the Cancer Registries were the basis to test the potential of using another base of health data: the Hospital Discharge Records (HDR).

Incident cases were identified by the HDR from Lombardy region. Controls were sampled in the NHS files of the same areas, by province, gender and 5-years age classes.
The study base is formed by subjects having an occupational history in the Social Security files.
Exposure has been determined on the basis of the prevalent activity.

The main advantage of HDR in the OCCAM framework is that they are available within few months from diagnosis: this allows to trace more quickly cases to be interviewed for risk mapping and compensation purposes. Moreover, the HDR are available in almost all Italian areas, whereas, the Cancer Registries cover only a limited part of the country. A major drawback is that the quality of diagnosis is not as reliable as that supplied by cancer Registries.