title: Comparison with manual registration reveals satisfactory completeness and efficiency of a computerized cancer registration system.
abstract: Automated software for cancer registration, called Open Registry and developed by ourselves was adopted by the Varese (population-based) Cancer Registry starting from 1997. Since the use of automated cancer registration is increasing, it is important to assess the quality and completeness of the automated data being produced. In this study, we assessed the completeness of the automatically generated data by comparison with a gold standard of all cases identified by manual and automatic systems for the year 1997 when the automated system was introduced, and the manual system was still in operation. We also evaluated the efficiency of the automated system. 5027 cases were generated automatically; 2959 (59%) were accepted automatically and 2068 (41%) were flagged for manual checking. Sixty-nine cases (1.3%) were not recorded automatically, the most common reason (0.8%) being that the incidence record was dated 1998, even though the case was incident in 1997. A total of 98.7% of all cases found were picked up by the automated system. A completeness figure of 98.7% indicates that the automatic procedure is a valid alternative to manual methods for routine case generation. The fact that 59% of cases were registered automatically indicates that the system can speed up data production and enhance registry efficiency.
authors: Cancer Registry Division, Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori, Via Venezian 1, 20133 Milan, Italy. biomol@istitutotumori.mi.it
authors: Paolo
authors: P
authors: Contiero
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: Tittarelli
authors: Anna
authors: A
authors: Maghini
authors: Sabrina
authors: S
authors: Fabiano
authors: Emanuela
authors: E
authors: Frassoldi
authors: Enrica
authors: E
authors: Costa
authors: Daniela
authors: D
authors: Gada
authors: Tiziana
authors: T
authors: Codazzi
authors: Paolo
authors: P
authors: Crosignani
authors: Roberto
authors: R
authors: Tessandori
authors: Giovanna
authors: G
authors: Tagliabue
mesh_terms: D003628:Database Management Systems; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012042:Registries