Reliability of the Kuwait Cancer Registry: A Comparisonbetween Breast Cancer Data Collected by Clinical Oncologistsand Registry Staff

Aim: The quality of cancer registration is of great importance and the present study was conducted to assessthe reliability of Kuwait Cancer Registry data on breast cancer.
Methods: Data from the clinical records extractedby a group of clinical oncologists for another study on 1,235 breast cancer cases diagnosed between 1999 and2004 were used to audit the data held on these individuals by the Kuwait Cancer Registry (KCR). Only 902 casesmet the eligibility criteria. Main measures were sex, nationality, laterality, morphology, stage of disease at timeof admission to the center, type of treatment and status at last follow up (alive or dead).
Results: Full or highagreement between registry data and clinical oncologists collected data was recorded for sex, nationality andlaterality. The rate of agreement for treatment with chemotherapy and status at last follow up was near perfect.Substantial agreement was also noted for morphology, tumor grade, TNM staging, surgical, radiotherapy andhormonal treatment. The majority of minor differences in morphology disagreements occurred when a morespecific description was stated by registry staff, while major disagreement occurred due to difference in thecodes used.
Conclusions: The accuracy of the KCR data seems to be comparable to that found in reviews ofother cancer registries. Stage was the hardest variable for the registry to collect accurate information on. KCRdata could be improved by improving the quality of information provided to the registry.