Cancer survival in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Central America: database and attributes.

Thirty-one registries in 17 countries submitted data for systematic and centralized scrutiny. Data on 564 606 cases of different cancers ranging 1-56 sites/types from 27 registries in 14 low-/medium-resource countries in Eastern and Western Africa, the Caribbean, Central America and four regions of Asia, registered during 1990-2001 (period varying for individual registries) were reported. The database for this survival study comprised data that were classified as mandatory and optional. Mandatory variables provided by all registries included case-ID, age at diagnosis, sex, incidence date, most valid basis of diagnosis, cancer site/type (ICD-10 codes C00-96), vital status at follow-up and corresponding date. Clinical extent of disease was prominent among the optional variables provided by 17 registries and analysed. The grouping of cancer sites for analysis was based on standard norms, and only categories with at least 25 cases were reported. Cases registered based on a death certificate only, cases lacking any follow-up after initial registration, or cases rejected based on validation checks were excluded from the survival analysis. An easy guide to contents in subsequent chapters, especially tables and graphs describing data quality indices, survival statistics and online dynamic functions, is provided.