title: Evaluation of data quality in the cancer registry: principles and methods Part II. Completeness.
abstract: The completeness of cancer registry data -- the extent to which all of the incident cancers occurring in the population are included in the registry database -- is an extremely important attribute of a cancer registry. Only a high degree of completeness in case-finding procedures will ensure cancer incidence rates and survival proportions are close to their true value. This second instalment of a two-part review of data quality methods at the cancer registry, focuses on the principles and techniques available for estimating completeness, separating methods into those that are semi-quantitative -- in that they give an indication of the degree of completeness relative to other registries or over time, and more quantitative techniques -- those that provide a numerical evaluation of the extent to which all eligible cases have been registered.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Trials Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. max.parkin@ctsu.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: D Max
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Parkin
authors.forename: Freddie
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bray
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003644:Death Certificates; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D011786:Quality Control; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design / Q000592:standards