What is the NICRs method of operation?
The Cancer Registry collects its information electronically using the hospital Patient Administration System (PAS), the Pathology Laboratory Systems, and to a lesser extent, the Death Certificates and Radiology Systems. Approximately 40,000 notifications are recorded annually for 8,500 new patients (including 2,500 non-melanoma skins cancers). The data are checked electronically, for errors such as wrong site/morphology combinations and wrong sex/site combinations, using programmes from the International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC) and Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) programme in the USA. Cases are then matched to identify duplicates or new cases. In the majority of cases, each case received from the PAS system will have a pathology or cytology report confirming the diagnosis. However some cancer patients e.g. some lung cancer patients, may not have a microscopically verified tumour as material for a biopsy may be difficult to obtain. Trained Registry st
