title: Consistency of primary brain tumor diagnoses and codes in cancer surveillance systems.
abstract: High-quality cancer registry data are essential for assessing trends in incidence rates. This study evaluated the consistency of brain tumor surveillance data using a random sample of cases from the Connecticut Tumor Registry. Three neuropathologists independently and blindly reviewed tumor slides from 204 cases and a nosologist blindly reviewed and assigned International Classification of Diseases for Oncology (ICD-O) codes to 326 cases. For the pathology review, absolute concordance was as high as 81% for all primary brain tumors. Absolute concordance rates were high for nerve sheath (89%), meningioma (95%), and pituitary (95%) tumors. Rates were much lower for malignant tumors. ICD-O coding of malignant brain tumors is of relatively high quality with the exception of mixed gliomas and unspecified tumors. A high level of consistency for nonmalignant brain tumor diagnoses suggests that rates for these tumors, when actively reported to a surveillance system, can be of high quality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology/Biostatistics, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
authors.forename: Monette S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Castillo
authors.forename: Faith G
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: Tanya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Surawicz
authors.forename: Janet M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bruner
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bigner
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Coons
authors.forename: Darell D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Bigner
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012042:Registries; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology