Audit of prostate cancer: lessons learnt for current clinical practice, surrogates for quality of care and standardisation and quality assurance.
Two-hundred and fifty-one prostate cancer patients first registered during 1994 were sampled from a Regional Cancer Registry. In the six months after diagnosis, 39% received drug treatment alone, while 37% had no active treatment. Eighty-one percent of cases were histologically proven. Seventy-six percent had a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test and in 3% the PSA test was the basis for diagnosis. Of histologically proven cases 29% had a Gleason grade. None were staged by clinicians. Key lessons were: The result was a snapshot of current clinical practice which suggested other possible surrogates for quality of care, such as basis of stage and timing of investigations; There is a need for standardisation and quality assurance of the content of pathology reports; Standard treatment protocols would aid recording and comparison of treatments.
Silcocks
P
P
Trent Institute for Health Services Research, University of Nottingham, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK.
Needham
P
P
Hemsley
F
F
D015415:Biomarkers; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008485:Medical Audit; D008499:Medical Records / Q000592:standards; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D017430:Prostate-Specific Antigen / Q000302:isolation & purification; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards*
D015415:Biomarkers; D017430:Prostate-Specific Antigen