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Health Initiative

Geographic Information System Based Research in Cervical Cancer Incidence with Prognostic Factors in New Brunswick

The background that brings the necessity of this project is the following:

Cervical cancer is the fourth main cause of death from neoplastic diseases among women worldwide. Its five-year survival rates are higher in early disease stage than in advanced disease stage. Pap smear screenings are efficient cervical cancer prevention programs to detect pre-malignant or micro-invasive lesions so that early treatment can be provided.

Observed regional variations in cervical cancer incidence have been sources of public health concern as well as, traditionally, a source of hypothesis generation for factors, which might contribute to differences in risk. The efficacy of using Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies in the analysis of spatial patterns of tumours and in examination of etiologic hypotheses has been well demonstrated. However, several factors inhibiting such studies include the complex nature of the spatial patterns of disease; the multivariate type of the natural and artificial environmental factors.

This project will apply GIS technologies with region-level statistics to map the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer, as well as Pap smear test results in certain New Brunswick regions. By integrating GIS with other technologies such as Data Mining, it will demonstrate the disease spatial clusters and discover the etiologic hypotheses and significant disease risk factors.

This research project will be of a great importance in providing new opportunities to advance cervical cancer surveillance, control and prevention, to improve monitoring of progress in cancer control and to explain potential causes of cervical cancer.

The aims of this project are the following:

Examine the incidence of cervical cancers in New Brunswick by smaller geographic areas and to determine if certain areas in New Brunswick may have higher or lower rates of cervical cancers
Evaluate the geographic distribution and spatial patterns of individuals diagnosed with different cervical cancers in order to determine whether an atypical geographic pattern of individuals diagnosed with these exists in certain areas of New Brunswick
Expand cancer surveillance to improve monitoring of progress in cancer control and explain potential causes of cancer across all populations in New Brunswick.

The possible impacts of this project are the following:

In addition to purely scientific interest, we believe that the results of this research project could have an impact in providing new opportunities to advance cancer surveillance, control and prevention, to improve monitoring of progress in cancer control and explain potential causes of cancer across all populations in New Brunswick. And also it will promote public access and community empowerment in public health decision-making.

This project started in March 2004 and is expected to end in February 2008.

We expect our research to contribute to the following:

To advance cancer surveillance, control and prevention
To improve monitoring of progress in cancer control
To explain potential causes of cancer across all populations in New Brunswick
To promote public access and community empowerment in public health decision-making

We expect our research to contribute to the following domains:

Diseases aetiology
Cancer monitoring and prevention
Epidemiology
Clinical decision support

Our research results could have an impact on the following sectors:

Prevention programs
Decision-making
Public access

The possible applications of this project include:

Integrate the data mining, multiple criteria classification techniques with GIS to help executives to make more informed decisions
Develop a web-based geospatial cervical incidence application
Extend this research work to other types of cancers and pathologies

The possible technical transfer opportunities related to this project include:

The GIS will be used to map out cervical cancer cases along with other potential risk factors for cervical cancer such as demographic, occupational, and societal factors
The spatial analysis will be designed to reveal potential cervical cancer clusters in the province, but also will highlight associations with specific risk factors that could have contributed to unusual clustering of cervical tumors cases

If interested, please contact the Business Development Officer listed below.

The research partners of this project include:

Beauséjour Regional Health Authority (BRHA), Moncton, New Brunswick
CARIS, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Research Contact

Dr. Nabil Belacel
Research Officer
Health Initiative
NRC Institute for Information Technology
55 Crowley Farm Road, Suite 1100-C, Scientific Park
Moncton, NB E1A 7R1
Telephone: +1 (506) 861-0963
Fax: +1 (506) 851-3630
E-mail: Nabil.Belacel@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

Business Contact

Georges Corriveau
Business Development Officer
Business Development Office, New Brunswick
NRC Institute for Information Technology
55 Crowley Farm Road, Suite 1100-C, Scientific Park
Moncton, NB E1A 7R1
Telephone: +1 (506) 861-0954
Fax: +1 (506) 851-3630
E-mail: Georges.Corriveau@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca