Estimation of Completeness of Cancer Registration for Patients Referred to Shiraz Selected Centers through a Two Source Capture Re-capture Method, 2009 Data

Background: Cancer has important social consequences with cancer registration as the basis of movingtowards prevention. The present study aimed to estimate the completeness of registration of the ten most commoncancers in patients referred to selected hospitals in Shiraz, Iran by using capture-recapture method. Materialsand
Methods: This cross-sectional analytical study was performed in 2014 based on the data of 2009, on a totalof 4,388 registered cancer patients. After cleaning data from two sources, using capture-recapture commonfindings were identified. Then, the percentage of the completeness of cancer registration was estimated usingChapman and Chao methods. Finally, the effects of demographic and treatment variables on the completenessof cancer registration were investigated.
Results: The results showed that the percentages of completenessof cancer registration in the selected hospitals of Shiraz were 58.6% and 58.4%, and influenced by differentvariables. The age group between 40-49 years old was the highest represented and for the age group under 20years old was the lowest for cancer registration. Breast cancer had the highest registration level and after that,thyroid and lung cancers, while colorectal cancer had the lowest registration level.
Conclusions: According tothe results, the number of cancers registered was very few and it seems that factors like inadequate knowledgeof some doctors, imprecise diagnosis about the types of cancer, incorrectly filled out medical documents, and lackof sufficient accuracy in recording data on the computer cause errors and defects in cancer registration. Thissuggests a necessity to educate and teach doctors and other medical workers about the methods of documentinginformation related to cancer and also conduct additional measures to improve the cancer registration system.