The national cancer data base report on patterns of childhood cancers in the United States

✍ Scribed by Alfred Grovas; Amy Fremgen; Amanda Rauck; Frederick B. Ruymann; Carol L. Hutchinson; David P. Winchester; Herman R. Menck

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 97 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19971215)80:12<2321::aid-cncr14>3.0.co;2-w

✦ Synopsis

BACKGROUND.

Patterns of and progress against childhood cancer have been reported on multi-institution, regional, national, and international bases by several sources in the past. These sources have included clinical cooperative group trials and population-based registries. In general, the population-based surveys have excluded brain tumors of either benign or uncertain behavior.

The authors of this article investigated the patterns of data reported for the period 1985 -1993, motivated by their interest in assessing the potential of National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) data to 1) facilitate individual institution review and 2) cover institutions that are not members of the Pediatric Oncology Group or the Children's Cancer Group, which are both national clinical cooperative groups.

METHODS.

Six annual calls for data, starting with a call for 1985 and 1988 cases, were issued to approximately 2100 hospitals with cancer programs (1340 programs approved by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons and 760 other programs). The baseline data items of the NCDB included patient demography, tumor characteristics, initial treatment, and follow-up. The data for each patient were coded in the traditional manner by trained cancer registrars before being transmitted to the NCDB in standard format.