Standard Setters

The following three organizations were involved in the development of standard codes for describing the cancer itself: The World Health Organization (WHO), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) developed standard codes for topography, morphology and extent of tumor spread.

The following three organizations shaped standards for facility and population-based registries. The Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons (CoC), defined the role of the facility registry in cancer management. The National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results Program (SEER) developed procedures for central registry monitoring of data quality and the National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR), administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, added incentives for population-based central registries to adhere to guidelines.

The following two organizations overlap the others in time and purpose. Although all standard setting agencies run training programs, the National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA) develops training programs specifically for registrars. The North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) promotes the development of standards shared by member central registries and the standard setters that sponsor it.

The National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) and the Uniform Data Standards Committee (UDSC) of NAACCR are joint efforts of the organizations already mentioned.