[Cancer registries and the quality of oncological care].
In 1971, President Nixon of the US declared war on cancer. To ascertain what progress has been made since then, national cancer registries may provide informative data. However, if standardised morbidity and mortality summary rates for cancer are dropping, we cannot conclude that there is a causal relation between increased diagnostic or therapeutic efforts and this decline. Cancer is a biologically complex disease with more than 400 different histological types of tumour. Many different efforts are made simultaneously to improve diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic effectiveness in selected types of malignancies. Since most cancers occur in elderly people, comorbidity is also a frequent problem. Final figures are therefore influenced by many different factors. Cancer registries reflect the result of all these factors, but figures indicating progress in the war on cancer have to be interpreted with caution.
Giard
R W M
RW
Medisch Centrum Rijnmond-Zuid, locatie Clara, Postbus 9119, 3007 AC Rotterdam. giard@mcrz.nl
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012042:Registries; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance