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A Canadian peer-reviewed journal of population health and health services research
August 2013
An examination of the NAACCR method of assessing completeness of case ascertainment using the Canadian Cancer Registry
by Dianne Zakaria
Reliable cancer registry data are needed for planning, monitoring, and evaluating cancer control programs. An important aspect of data quality is case ascertainment, generally defined as the percentage of all incident tumours in a registry’s surveillance population that are captured in the registry’s database. Incomplete case ascertainment can lead to underestimated incidence and prevalence, and biased socio-demographic and clinical characteristics (for example, stage at diagnosis, treatment provided, survival) if the cancers recorded by a registry differ substantially from those that are missed.
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