Measuring the Effect of Improved Medical Facilities and Focused Training on Data Quality and Completeness: An Example from the Gharbiah Population-Based Cancer Registry, Egypt

Abstract

Cancer rates are increasing in low- and middle- income countries. There are a limited number of populationbased cancer registries in Africa and the Egyptian population-based registry in Gharbiah is one of those registries. This registry has followed the standard international registration process and methods since 1999 and has been included in Cancer Incidence in Five Continents volumes IX and X. This article illustrates the reflection of improving medical care in the geographic region of the registry and focused training on enhancing the registry data. The registry area has seen advancement in medical care and cancer diagnostic facilities during the study period. The focused training included 8 different international training sessions over 8 different years for the registrars, administrators, and directors as well as continuing on-the-job training for other registry personnel. These improvements resulted in an overall 40% increase in nonmicroscopic diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as 20%, 10%, and 10% increases in microscopic diagnosis of pancreatic, brain, and lung cancers, respectively, over 9 years. An overall increase of 5% to 10% in subsite diagnosis was also seen for lung, colon, brain, bladder, and breast cancers for the same 9 years. An increase of 3% in grading was seen for solid tumors while 11% was seen for lymphoma. This study showed that low- and middle- income countries can observe higher data quality for cancer registries with improvement in medical care and focused training.