How are cancer patients with medical cards different? Does this affect research?

What is it about?

When using large datasets we need to understand where the data comes from, how it is generated, and whether there are factors which affect what we can do with it. In Ireland prescription data is only collected on patients with medical cards. This paper looks at whether ovarian cancer patients who have a card differ from those without one. We consider whether these differences could have an impact on the important analyses we can do with this prescription data.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

We use this data to help answer important research questions about populations. Our group is specifically interested in whether cancer patients taking some common medications (e.g. aspirin, statins, beta-blockers) have better outcomes. This paper shows that patients who have cards are a little different to those who don't and have slightly worse health. Whether this impacts the effect of medication depends on the specific drug.