Italy
Cancer Centers
Healthcare System
Italy offers universal healthcare through the National Health Service (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale; SSN). Each individual is required to register with a general practitioner or a pediatrician (up to age 14), and they are referred to other specialties as needed. The central government defines "Essential Levels of Care (LEAs)" and provides resources for the regional governments to offer healthcare services. [1]
Claims databases are national, but each region maintains cancer registries separately, sharing the data with the Italian Association of Cancer Registries (AIRTUM).
Administrative or Claims Data
Hospital Discharge Database (SDO)
Primary Purpose: Store administrative information about hospital discharges in all national public or private hospitals.
Sponsor, manager or home institution: Ministry of Health.
Type of information: Patient's personal characteristics (including age, sex, residence, level of education), characteristics of the hospitalization (for example institution and discharge discipline, hospitalization regime, method of discharge, booking date, priority class of hospitalization) and clinical features (e.g. main diagnosis, concomitant diagnoses, diagnostic or therapeutic procedures).
Available type of information: Claims data by region, national and regional claims by DRG, MDC, procedures, as well as various data about the length of stay for all these categories, among other information.
Source of Information: Information is sent to the SDO via form by public and private healthcare providers.
Data level: Patient level.
Available data level: Regional and national level.
Number of Records: 98.9% of institutions covered as of 2020.
Date Range: 2001 onwards.
Open data access: Partial open data. Reports can be found here.
Information/Contact for data request: Instructions on how to gain access to data and documents can be found here.
Registries
I.Stat - Causes of Death
Primary purpose: Provide access to data collection results from all statistical themes, including health and healthcare.
Sponsor, manager or home institution: National Institute of Statistics (Istat)
Available type of information: Information on cause of death per age, sex, region, per number of inhabitants, among other information.
Source of information: Death certificates sent by municipalities to Istat.
Data level: Patient level.
Available data level: Regional and national level.
Number of Records: All death certificates in Italy sent to Istat.
Date Range: 1923 onwards.
Cancer Areas of Interest (ICD): Malignant neoplasm of lip, oral cavity, pharynx; oesophagus; stomach; colon, rectum and anus; liver; pancreas; larynx; trachea, bronchus, lung; skin; breast; cervix uteri; other and unspecified parts of uterus; ovary; prostate; kidney; bladder; brain and central nervous system; thyroid; hodgkin disease and lymphomas; leukaemia; lymph./haematopoietic tissue; other malignant neoplasms.
Open data access: Data is partially publicly available. Open data can be found here.
Information/Contact for data request: Instructions to access data can be found here.
I.Stat - Smoking Habits
Primary purpose: Provide access to data collection results from all statistical themes, including health and healthcare.
Sponsor, manager or home institution: National Institute of Statistics (Istat)
Type of information: Surveys used to collect data can be found here.
Available type of information: Smoking habit (smoker, never smoker, former-smoker), number of cigarettes per day, average number of cigarettes, all organized per age, educational level, occupation, and region.
Source of information: Survey carried out on a sample of about 25,000 families distributed in about 800 Italian municipalities of different demographic size.
Data level: Patient level.
Available data level: Regional and national level.
Number of Records: 25,000 families every year.
Date Range: 1993 onwards.
Cancer Areas of Interest: Cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx; esophagus; stomach; colon and rectum; liver; pancreas; larynx; lung, bronchus, and trachea; kidney and renal pelvis; urinary bladder; and cervix.
Open data access: Data is partially publicly available. Open data can be found here.
Information/Contact for data request: Instructions to access data can be found here.
Compilation: Italian Association of Cancer Registries (AIRTUM)
Primary purpose: Systematically collect and archive cancer registries from all regions of Italy.
Sponsor, manager or home institution: Italian Association of Cancer Registries.
Type of database: Cancer registries with incidence data and mortality data. All registries included can be found here.
Source of information: Cancer registries from all regions of Italy. Information is collected from these registries and is validated for their quality and completeness. [2]
Data level: Patient level.
Number of Records: over 3,500,000 cancer cases in total.
Date Range: Varies.
Cancer Areas of Interest: Varies.
Open data access: Data is not publicly available.
Information/Contact for data request: Information on how to access data can be found here.
Compilation: Open Databases
Primary purpose: Offer publicly available databases about multiple subjects.
Sponsor, manager or home institution: Ministry of Health.
Type of databases: Databases that include information about distribution, sale, logistics and authorizations of drugs, among other information.
Source of information: Unknown.
Data level: Regional level; national level.
Number of Records: Unknown.
Date Range: Varies.
Cancer Areas of Interest: Varies.
Open data access: Open data.
Information/Contact for data request: The openly available data can be found here. <!-
Clinical Study Databases
Electronic Health Records
Clinical Practices Guidelines
Latest Policymaking Initiatives
->
Italian Association of Cancer Registries (AIRTUM) Reports
Sponsor, manager or home institution: Italian Association of Cancer Registries (AIRTUM)
Primary purpose: Offer publicly available oncological information to improve cancer management.
Type of information: Reports on incidence of cancer, cancer as cause of death, cancer survival, risk behaviors, and others, in various levels of detail, regional and national, for various cancer types.
Data level: Regional and national level.
Access to information: Reports can be found here. <!-
->
