SEER-Medicaid and SEER-Medicare data for neuro-oncology research.

PURPOSE: The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program is a robust resource for U.S. cancer surveillance, capturing cancer patient data on diagnosis, treatment, survival, and demographics across diverse population-based cancer registries. The linkage of SEER data with Medicare and, more recently, Medicaid, enhances its utility for understanding treatment access, quality, and outcomes, as well as health policy impacts, on patients with brain tumors. This review describes the SEER-Medicaid and SEER-Medicare data resources and provides practical guidance for researchers to support robust epidemiologic and policy-relevant neuro-oncology investigations.

METHODS

We conducted a narrative review of SEER-Medicaid and SEER-Medicare resources, summarizing data structures, linkage mechanisms, data availability, application process, potential uses for neuro-oncology research with examples, strengths and limitations for research, and future directions.

RESULTS

Both SEER-Medicaid and SEER-Medicare offer rich opportunities to study access to care, treatment patterns, service utilization, and outcomes in brain tumor populations. However, the use of these data sources for neuro-oncology studies is limited to date.

CONCLUSIONS

SEER-Medicaid and SEER-Medicare are valuable yet underused resources in neuro-oncology. These databases enable a broader set of questions across the brain tumor care continuum, particularly for low-income and older patients, with relevance for addressing equity and improving outcomes in neuro-oncology.