COBRAS

COBRAS is a population modeling of bladder cancer to improve screening, surveillance, treatment and prevention

Bladder cancer is the #6 cause of death among men and the most expensive cancer to treat per patient. Despite changes in cancer treatment and risk factors, bladder cancer incidence rate has remained steady for the past 50 years.

This project aims is to improve clinical practice and bladder cancer treatment guidelines with regards to the detection, screening, surveillance, and treatment of bladder cancer in the population. The project is funded by the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) and is part of the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network.

The model is a discrete event simulation model that simulates multiple birth-year cohorts in the US population since 1900. We use SEER stats data and other source to calibrate the model, and recently just submitted the results of the first calibration along with results from the Kystis Model (Brown University) and the SCOUT model (NY University).

We recently finished calibrating the model and presented the results of calibrating the model at the Society for Medical Decision Making in Philadelphia.

References

2023

  1. Approaches to developing de novo cancer population models to examine questions about cancer and race in bladder, gastric, and endometrial cancer and multiple myeloma: the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network incubator program
    Yuliia Sereda, Fernando Alarid-Escudero, Nina A Bickell, Su-Hsin Chang, Graham A Colditz, Chin Hur, Hawre Jalal, Evan R Myers, Tracy M Layne, Shi-Yi Wang, and  others
    JNCI Monographs, 2023