Cancer Registry

There are many reasons why cancer data is important to various people. Clinical researchers use accurate, up-to-date cancer data to study potential causes of cancer and to differentiate the effectiveness of various treatment modalities, the optimum time for treatment, and which treatments may offer the best outcome based on stage of disease. Medical administrators use cancer data to make decisions about types of clinical staff needed to provide quality cancer care to the patients seem at their facilities. Administrators make decisions related to equipment purchases, cancer needs of the community, and to provide data needed to develop or expand cancer prevention efforts. Departments of Health use cancer data to investigate potential cancer clusters and their causes. Federal agencies use cancer statistical data to determine need for funding to support cancer prevention and treatment in targeted communities. All these valuable cancer statistics are the result of data collected and provided by cancer registries.

A cancer registry is a specific type of disease registry whose major purposes are

  • To establish and maintain a cancer and central nervous system tumor incidence reporting system
  • To serve as an informational resource for the investigation of cancer, its causes, and identification of optimal treatments
  • To provide information to assist public health officials and agencies in the planning and evaluation of cancer prevention and control programs
  • To serve as the foundation for cancer research and treatment advances

State and regional cancer registries are a primary source for unbiased population-based case control studies, the end points for cohort studies and clinical trials – and perhaps most importantly the starting point for survival analysis.

Cancer registration refers to the process of continual, systematic collection of data on the occurrence and characteristics of reportable malignancies with the purpose of helping assess and control the impact of cancer on the community. The foundation of this system is a group of meticulous, hardworking people called cancer registrars who are trained to collect accurate, complete, detailed, and timely data on cancer patients. More about cancer registrars will be discussed in the Cancer Registrars section.

Updated: December 11, 2023