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Java implementation of cancer-related algorithms (NHIA, NAPIIA, Survival Time, etc...)
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NameMaiden NAACCR item was renamed to BirthSurname #110

Closed depryf closed 3 years ago

depryf commented 3 years ago

Notifying @howew

For NAACCR 21, NAACCR replaced maiden name by birth surname, but they decided to keep the maiden name field. Which is a weird decision because we can't tell who is going to use what item in NAACCR 21...

The algorithms use the official NAACCR XML IDs as field names; the NHIA and NAPIIA algorithms both reference the maiden name item.

There are two ways to deal with this:

  1. We change the algorithms so they use the new fields.
  2. We change the algorithms so they use both fields (the new one if it has a value, if not, then use the old one).

I think the second approach is safer. Because N18 (and prior) data file are still going to contain the old data item. Switching this library to use the new field only means that every caller would be force to check and both fields and provide the one that has a value. And so why not do that in this library?

I haven't look at the code, but I think this will work: the algorithm will be shown as using both fields, and it will pick the one that has a value (giving priority to the new field).

I assume the old maiden name field will be retired in N22; when that happens, we will remove that field from the library and only use the new field.

depryf commented 3 years ago

This is done. The next release will be 3.0 and will contain these changes.