How many people included in the Nov 2023 data submission for the SEER 22 registries have 10 or more tumors? What is the total number of tumor records for those people? How many of these tumors are primary tumors?

  • 223 individuals in the SEER 22 registries (Nov 2023 data submission) have 10 or more tumors in the database.
  • The total number of tumor records for these 223 individuals is 2750.
  • All 2750 are primary tumors. Primary tumors are tumors that are not recurrences or metastases. SEER only includes primary tumors in data submissions. Therefore, all records in SEER databases are primary tumors. This point is so important that we are saying it here even though it has nothing to do with Person Selection.

You could have run one Case Listing Session or two Frequency Sessions to get the answers to these questions.

Using a Case Listing Session

To answer these questions using a Case Listing Session:
  1. Start a new Case Listing Session.
  2. Select the "Incidence - SEER Research Limited-Field Data, 22 Registries, Nov 2023 Sub (2000-2021)" database.
  3. Turn Person Selection on (Session Menu).
  4. On the Selection tab, uncheck the Malignant Behavior option in the Select Only box at the top of the page. We want to see all matching tumors, regardless of behavior.
  5. Click the "Narrow the Selection of Persons" checkbox.
  6. Set the "Narrow the Selection of Persons" controls to select only persons with a matching index record and at least 9 additional records.
  7. Add at least one variable to the table. Patient ID and Site recode ICD-O-3/WHO 2008 are interesting variables for this exercise.
  8. Execute the session.

The number of tumor records equals the number of rows in the matrix. The number of individuals is displayed in the status bar of the matrix window. To review the session settings and verify your results, open case1.answer1.sl.

Using Frequency Sessions

Two frequency sessions must be used, one for each question. Frequency sessions are used to count records based on search criteria and can be used indirectly to provide a count of people. Person Selection must be turned ON to answer both questions.

Number of People with 10 or More Primary Tumors

  1. Start a new Frequency Session.
  2. Select the "Incidence - SEER Research Limited-Field Data, 22 Registries, Nov 2023 Sub (2000-2021)" database.
  3. Turn Person Selection on (Session Menu).
  4. On the Selection tab, uncheck the Malignant Behavior option in the Select Only box at the top of the page. We want to see all matching tumors, regardless of behavior.
  5. Click the "Narrow the Selection of Persons" checkbox.
  6. Set the "Narrow the Selection of Persons" controls to select only persons with a matching index record and at least 9 additional records.
  7. So that each person is only counted once, set the "For every person, include" drop down list to "only the index record."
  8. Execute the session.
  9. You can look at the results in freq.answer1a.sfm.

Total Number of Tumor Records for Those People

  1. Use freq.answer1a's session.
  2. Change the "For every person, include" drop down list to "all the person's records."
  3. Execute the session.
  4. You can look at the results in freq.answer1b.sfm.

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