Colorectal cancer care at Falmouth Hospital: an assessment of progress through registry statistics.

The purpose of this study is to assess the improvement of one aspect of colorectal cancer care at Falmouth Hospital as compared to a prior quality assessment report published in 2011. This quality assessment by I. Hopewood reported the need to increase the average number of lymph nodes removed and examined per patient in order to improve compliance with national guidelines.1 Falmouth Hospital pathology implemented a new alcohol-formalin fixation technique in 2011 to increase the number of resected lymph nodes examined. By comparing care based on the quality of surgery (ie, number of nodes examined) and stage of diagnosis, this study aimed to assess whether the quality improvement measures implemented may have an impact. Data were obtained from the hospital's tumor registry and the National Cancer Data Base. Results showed an increase in average number of nodes examined per patient, but no statistically significant change in the distribution of stage at diagnosis or evidence for detection of later stage cancers.