Accuracy Of US Cancer Surveillance Under Threat

A report obtained by The Lancet Oncology details a precipitous decline in US Veteran Affairs (VA) reporting of new cancer cases to California registries beginning in late 2004—from 3000 cases in 2003 to almost none by the end of 2005. Inconsistent and incomplete case reporting by VA Hospitals are also long-standing problems for other US states and could mean that cancer rates appear artificially low across the USA.

The omission of veteran data would introduce “uncorrectable bias” in epidemiological studies, and research from the mid-2000s will not be correct, according to Dennis Deapen of the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program. Furthermore, it will hamper efforts to identify quality-of-care issues for VA patients with cancer.

A draft version of the VA policy directive on cancer reporting was obtained by The Lancet Oncology which revealed that the directive will formalise the prohibitions on sharing veteran cancer data between states and forbid the “re-lease” of veteran data to researchers whose studies have not been approved by the VA. “This could become a serious issue for the validity of epidemiological studies” according to Elizabeth Ward of the American Cancer Society. The VA has since posted the final directive on its website.

Media Contact

Tony Kirby alfa

More Information:

http://www.lancet.com

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors