Cancer registries collect data on cancer incidence, types, treatment options, and mortality rates. They can identify trends, alert areas at risk, and help devise treatment plans. Most registries fall into three categories: individual health centers, regional data, and databases of specific cancer types. Personal medical data is required but stripped of identifying information to ensure confidentiality. Registrars compile and analyze data, providing reports to doctors and officials. Registry statistics are used to improve treatments, identify endemic cancers, create educational campaigns, and allocate public health and research funds.
A cancer registry is a collection of statistics and data about cancer and its characteristics. The registries record the incidence and types of cancer, treatment options pursued, and mortality rates, among other statistics. Information from individual doctors and hospitals is typically reported to a regional agency, which collects data through cancer registrars. Cancer registries are also sometimes combined to create national databases. A cancer registry helps identify local and regional trends, provides an alert if an area is at risk for a particular form of the disease, and possibly helps devise treatment plans.
Most cancer registries fall into three broad categories: information about individual health centers, regional data, and databases of a specific type of cancer. In the first category, treatment centers and hospitals keep internal records of cancer cases treated to establish local trends and often to decide how to spend research money. This information is also reported to a regional cancer registry that collects data for a defined geographic area, as well as a database that lists specific forms of cancer. For example, a prostate cancer registry would show the incidence rate of the disease, the types of treatments used, and the success or failure of therapies; it could also indicate whether a certain area is particularly prone to prostate cancer.
While each cancer registry is different, most focus on gathering basic data on cancer incidence and types, the location of the tumors, patient histories, and treatment plans. While personal medical data is required to create registries, identifying information is stripped from the registries to ensure patient confidentiality. Doctors, hospitals, cancer centers and research institutions all provide registry data. In some areas this is voluntary, but other jurisdictions have mandatory reporting.
A cancer registrar then compiles the reported data. Registrars, data management professionals, are responsible for overseeing the collection process to ensure compliance with reporting standards. They enter information into computer programs and identify and analyze any observed cancer trends. Registrars provide regular reports based on their findings to doctors and government officials. This process is part of medical informatics, a field that uses computers to collect, analyze, and act on health information.
Registry statistics are used in different ways by medical and government officials. Doctors can use the information they gather to see if some treatments have better survival rates than others, or if specific types of cancer are being diagnosed in advanced stages. Public health officials can identify whether a precise form of cancer is endemic in a population or geographic area and investigate why. Government officials can use the registries to create educational campaigns about a specific form of cancer; public service announcements reminding women to get mammograms are one example. Information from the registry can also provide a justification for allocating public health and research funds for certain types of cancer.
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