Purpose: The purpose of this article is to illustrate how cancer registry data can be used to address questions
of quality assurance and continuous quality improvement, and to generate contemporary cohorts of patients
for retrospective studies. The history and purpose of hospital cancer registries is reviewed and examples of
use of registry data provided.
Methods: Cancer Registry information, manuals, and definitions were reviewed. The 25-year experience
of the lead author in collaborating with registrars and using the cancer registry of a large community hospital
in southern California is described. The strengths and weaknesses of such data are discussed. Examples of
completed studies are provided to illustrate how such data was organized, analyzed, and presented to
physicians and administrators, and for peer reviewed publications.
Results: The strengths of such data are the large numbers of patients, validity of date of diagnosis, histologic
diagnosis, general stage, and date of death. The major limitations of the data are due to incomplete reporting
of specific treatment regimens, especially after the initial 4-month period of management. The quality
assurance and quality improvement studies generated proved to be of great interest to local physicians and
administrators. Several such studies were used in peer-reviewed publications. The interest and job
satisfaction of registrars, and data quality all improved when registry data was being used and reported
locally rather than merely being submitted to a national data repository.
Conclusion: In the absence of comprehensive integrated medical care data bases, high-quality cancer
registries can be used to address local issues related to quality improvement and quality assurance and
provide data for peer-reviewed publications.
A Culture of Continuous Quality Improvement Improves Registry Data
