Background: Recent evidence from the Government Performance Review Act Report on Oncology has shown an earlier detection of colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer in Veterans Administration Hospitals (VAHs) versus other SEER hospitals despite similar incidence rates.
Purpose: Assess melanoma screening by looking at incidence of stages at diagnosis. Earlier detection of melanoma compared to other hospitals may suggest better screening in VAHs.
Methods: Community Programs (CCP) receive 100-500 newly diagnosed cancer cases per year. Hospitals receiving 500+ patients are either Academic Comprehensive Programs (ACP) or Comprehensive Community Cancer Programs (CCCP). Using NCDB (2003-2013), which includes > 70% of newly diagnosed cancer patients, we utilized chi-square analysis and compared stage at diagnosis for patients with melanoma.
Results: VA hospitals consistently detect higher rates of early stage melanoma with 41% stage 0 and 73% stage 0/I versus the average of 27.75% stage 0 and 67.25% stage 0/I between all hospitals (P < .01). VA hospitals also consistently detect lower rates of late stage melanoma stage IV between all hospitals (P < .01).
Implications: This is the first study showing higher rates of early diagnosis of melanoma in VAH versus other hospital types in NCDB by looking at staging. Early stage melanoma was detected at greater frequencies and late stage melanoma at lower frequencies in VA hospitals. This may suggest better screening, resulting in better prognosis, for patients treated in VAH. 27.5% less patients were stage IV in VAH than the calculated average. If we apply the percentage of VAH stage IV melanoma to all other hospitals, good screening in VAH may have prevented 5,138 patients from becoming stage IV.
