Who Handbook For Standardized Cancer Registries [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION The World Health Organization has always emphasized the aim of coordinating national efforts in the field of cancer control. The need for a "common language" in order to perform this task is obviously essential. In furtherance of this aim a programme of standardization of cancer registries has been developed. Some of the difficulties of international cancer control arise because of a lack of standardization. These difficulties include: (1) Differences in pathological nomenclature of malignant diseases; (2) Differences in classification of malignant diseases; (3) Differences in cancer staging; (4) Differences in evaluation and presentation of results. WHO is committed to activities aimed at resolving the first two differences enumerated, and the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) and the American Joint Committee for Cancer Staging and Results Reporting (AJC) are involved in overcoming the third; it was felt that a further step to help cancer control activities should be an attempt to standardize hospital cancer registries, which, of course, would use all those elements for which unification has already been achieved or is recommended (the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), the UICC's TNM1 system for cancer staging, etc.). In 1970, WHO undertook a survey of 26 hospital cancer registries from which it was apparent that the variation between them was so great as to exclude the possibility of comparative studies. Several main conclusions were drawn from the survey: (1) The aim of hospital-based cancer registries was not well understood; (2) In many instances the registries were created without sufficient study or understanding of the subject; T = the tumour; N = the regional lymph nodes; M = distant metastases.