The growth and maturation of the National Cancer Data Base.

BACKGROUND

The National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint project of the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society, is a cancer management and outcomes data base for health care organizations. It provides a comparative summary of patient care that is used by communities and participating hospitals for self-assessment. The most current (1994) data are described here.

METHODS

Six calls for data have yielded a total of 4,580,000 cases for the years 1985-1994. A total of 1735 hospital cancer registries have each participated in at least one of the calls for data.

RESULTS

Summing the last year's report from each of the 1227 hospitals that participated in 1994, the cases represent the equivalent of 57% of the estimated 1994 U.S. cancer cases. These data were received from all six regions of the country, including all 50 states. Ninety-seven percent of patients received all or part of their treatment at the reporting hospital. The four most common cancers are carcinomas of the breast (15.7%), lung (14.3%), prostate (13.1%), and colon (7.7%), and collectively they comprise a majority of new cases.

CONCLUSIONS

The NCDB is a cancer management and outcomes data base for health care organizations that currently provides data on 57% of the estimated new cases in the U.S. Past data have been used extensively to assess patterns of care and outcomes.