The Aarhus Sarcoma Registry (ASR) started at 1993. In 2009 it was included in the Danish Sarcoma Registry (DSR). The ASR was validated in thesis: Prognostic factors in soft tissue sarcoma: Population-based studies on comorbidity, biomarkers, and methodological aspects, Katja Maretty-Nielsen 2014. The thesis consists of five papers conducted in western Denmark within a population of approximately 2.5 million. Individual linkage between the ASR and national registries was made possible by the unique Danish registration number. The National Patient Registry and the LABKA database were used to obtain data on comorbidity and biomarkers. In studies II to V we used a time-to-event-analysis approach that included cumulative incidence functions as well as crude and confounder adjusted Cox proportional hazard regression.

In study I, we established that the overall validity of data in the ASR, after validation, was satisfactory and that the ASR included 85.3% of sarcoma patients from western Denmark between 1979 and 2008. In study II, we found a 5-year local recurrence and disease-specific mortality of 16% and 24%, respectively. We excluded depth as a prognostic factor, and established that duration of symptoms, compartmentalization, and radiotherapy were important prognostic factors for disease-specific mortality. In study III, we found that the level of comorbidity before or at diagnosis was an independent prognostic factor for both overall and disease-specific mortality, even after adjustment for age. In study IV, we showed that pretreatment levels of albumin, hemoglobin, and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratios were independently correlated with disease-specific mortality, and that adjusting for comorbidity was significant. In study V, we found 5-year and 10-year relative mortalities of 32.8% and 36.0%, respectively. The mortality in patients with low-grade STS was not significantly increased compared with the general population. The 5- and 10-year cancer-specific mortalities were underestimated by 3.1 and 1.9 percentage points compared to the relative mortality, respectively. We showed that relative mortality provided an accurate method to differentiate between cancer-specific and non-cancer-specific deaths.

In further studies we investigate the effect of specific comorbidities, the effect of socieconomic factors and use of health care services on survival and death after treatment of sarcomas.

The research are performed in collaboration with Department of Oncology , Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Research Unit of General Practice, AarhusUniversity  and Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Rigshospitalet, CopenhagenUniversityHospital.

Contacts

Dr. Johnny Keller, Senior Consultant, MD, DMSC

  Email johkell@rm.dk

Dr. Peter Holmberg Jorgensen, MD, DMSc

  Email petjoe@rm.dk

Dr. Bjarne Hauge Hansen, MD

 Email BJAHAN@hyrm.dk

Dr. Thomas Baad Hansen, MD, PhD

  Email THOBAA@rm.dk

Dr Michael Bendtsen, MD, PhD

  Email MICBEN@rm.dk

Dr. Katja Maretty Kongstad, MD, PhD

  Email katjni@rm.dk

Dr. Nina Aggerholm Petersen, MD, PhD.

  Email ninnpe@rm.dk

PhD student Mathias Rædkjær

  Email raedkjaer@dadlnet.dk