nci logo
NIH
U.S. National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute

SEER*Stat Case Listing Exercise 1b

Show all records from 1973-2005 for patients who have a breast cancer tumor meeting the selection criteria in Case Listing Exercise 1a, and at least one additional malignant cancer diagnosis.

Key Points and Reminders

  • Person Selection can be toggled on/off in the Session menu. When off, only tumor records meeting the criteria specified in the selection statement will be included in the matrix. When on, the matrix will include all records for each patient meeting the selection criteria.
  • Narrow the Selection of Persons allows you to select based on a person's cancer history, that is, all of their tumor records. For a person to be included, the statement at the top of the screen and the criteria specified in the Narrow the Selection of Persons section must be TRUE.
  • The options in the Select Only box at the top of the Selection Tab apply to both the index record and the other selected records

Step 1:  Open Case Listing Exercise 1a's Matrix

  • Start SEER*Stat.
  • From the File menu select Open > Case Listing File or use the Open file/folder button on the toolbar.
  • Open the file saved in Case Listing Exercise 1a. The filename should be "Case Listing Exercise 1a.slm".
  • If you did not save the output for exercise 1a you may open our version of the output: Case Listing 1a Results Matrix.

Learn More...

  • The Open file/folder button on the toolbar can be used to open any type of SEER*Stat file. It is equivalent to selecting Any SEER*Stat File from the File > Open menu. SEER*Stat will automatically determine the file type and open the appropriate session or matrix. If you prefer, you can specify the type of file you wish to open using the File menu. The only benefit to specifying the type of file is to reduce the number of files listed in the folder. See SEER*Stat's Help System for more information.
  • SEER*Stat uses the ".slm" extension for "SEER*Stat Listing Matrix" files.

Step 2:  Extract the Session

  • SEER*Stat matrix files include the session information used to generate the table. This information serves as documentation for the table and provides a convenient method for generating similar output.
  • From the Matrix menu select Retrieve Session.
  • Two windows should now be open. Close the matrix window containing the table created in Case Listing Exercise 1a. You should now have one window labeled "Case Listing Session-x" where x is the number of case listing session windows that you have created since starting SEER*Stat.

Learn More...

  • SEER*Stat is an MDI application. MDI stands for Multiple Document Interface. Word, WordPerfect, and Excel are all MDIs. That is, they allow you to work with more than one document at a time. With SEER*Stat that means that you can have any combination of session and matrix windows open at the same time.
  • SEER*Stat displays the filename in the title bar of an open window. If the session or matrix is not saved then a generic, numbered label is used ("Case Listing Session-x", "Case Listing Matrix-x", etc).

Step 3:  Verify the Data Tab

  • Since we extracted this session from exercise 1a's matrix file, the "Incidence - SEER 17 Regs Limited-Use + Hurricane Katrina Impacted Louisiana Cases, Nov 2007 Sub (1973-2005 varying)" database should be selected on the Data Tab.

Step 4:  Modify the Selection Tab

  • Move to the Selection Tab.
  • On the Session menu, turn on Person Selection. SEER*Stat will display a warning indicating that all records for each qualifying person will be included in the matrix. If you executed SEER*Stat now, more records would be included in the table than are in the exercise 1a matrix. These are the additional diagnoses for each person.
  • When Person Selection is on, the Select Only box at the top of the Selection Tab applies the options to both the Index Record and Other Selections. Because we want to find people in the database with malignant breast cancer tumors and at least one additional cancer diagnosis regardless of behavior, we need to modify the selections from Case Listing Exercise 1a to apply the malignant behavior selection to only the index record:
    1. Turn OFF the Malignant Behavior checkbox.
    2. Click Edit next to the Index Record box to open the Case Selection window.
    3. Add the following statement for malignant behavior to the Selection Statement box.
      {Site and Morphology.Behavior recode for analysis} = 'Malignant'.
  • Check the Narrow the Selection of Persons box that now appears on the Selection Tab. We will use this feature to limit the selection to people with 2 or more tumors (where at least one matches the selection criteria in the top box).
  • Leave the controls set to "Select only persons with a matching index record and at least 1 additional record(s) matching the following:"
  • Do not enter a statement in the lower box. Having no selection indicates that at least 1 additional record of any type is a match. Therefore, the Selection Tab now specifies that we want to see all records for persons with two or more tumors, where at least one matches the criteria at the top.

Learn More...

  • The Person Selection feature is only enabled if the records in the database are grouped by person and are in order of diagnosis (for example, SEER incidence databases are sorted by SEER Registry, Patient ID, and Sequence Number). See Multiple Primary Selections in the SEER*Stat help system for more information.
  • The "For every selected person, include" control at the bottom of the screen is always set to "all the person's records" in Case Listing Sessions. These and other person selecting features are discussed in the SEER*Stat help system.
  • SEER*Stat uses "nag" dialogs to present some warning messages. These dialogs include a checkbox to allow you to specify that you do not want to see the message in the future. Note: If you disabled the warning messages, you may turn them back on using the setting on the Preferences dialog under the File Menu.

Step 5:  Modify the Table Tab

  • Add the following to the list of column variables:
    • Site rec with Kaposi and mesothelioma
    • Behavior recode for analysis
  • These were not included in exercise 1a because all records had the same values for these variables (site = breast cancer, behavior = malignant). Due to the inclusion of additional diagnoses, these variables will be of interest.

Step 6:  Edit the Title

  • Move to the Output Tab
  • Modify the title to reflect our changes. The new title should be something like:
    All Tumors for Women with a
    Malignant Breast Cancer Diagnosis in Iowa, 2001-2005, Age 50+ at Dx
    and At Least One Additional Tumor of any Type
    Case Listing Exercise 1b

Learn More...

  • For those of you who are not proficient typists, feel free to copy-and-paste the title from this document to the Output Tab in SEER*Stat.

Step 7:  Execute SEER*Stat

  • Use the Execute button or select Execute from the Session menu to execute the session.
  • Compare your output to this SEER*Stat matrix file: Exercise Matrix 1b Results. Notice that the number of people in the cohort is listed as a footnote (look at the bottom of the matrix window).