Vertical Contractions

In week 6, I started focusing on my project, which is to evaluate survival data for patients who have had a nephrectomy at the hospital for their kidney cancer. There are two types of nephrectomies: (1) partial, which is removal of localized cancer that allows most of the kidney to be preserved, and (2) radical, which is removal of all of one kidney as well as the adjacent adrenal gland and neighboring lymph nodes. There are also two procedural types: (1) traditional open surgery, and (2) laparoscopic, which is done through several small keyhole incisions and is less invasive. Finally, to evaluate survival data, the key piece of information is patient last known status, which is divided into four categories: (1) no evidence of disease (NED), (2) alive with disease (AWD), (3) dead of disease (DOD), and (4) dead of other cause (DOC).

For my project, I will be synthesizing several databases containing patient information, contact information, medical history, surgical history, and OR data into one complete spreadsheet that I can use to perform statistical analysis (such as the Kaplan-Meier method for survival rate). In total, there are about 800 patients in the database, but about half of these patients' last known status was before 2008. Therefore, I will also be updating these patients' statuses either by searching for status updates on EPIC or by calling them directly (or their emergency contacts).