Manual for Cancer Registry Personnel

A complete training guide and day-to-day reference for personnel working in population-based cancer registries. Firmly rooted in practical experience, the manual aims to provide all the information needed to help personnel exercise good judgement as well as follow standard procedures of abstracting and coding. Explanations of specific tasks are complemented by numerous reference tables and charts, definitions, exercises, questions and answers, model forms, and examples of typical reports and records. Details range from a flow chart for finding cancer cases in hospitals, through exercises for practice in abstracting and coding, to advice on how to interpret ambiguous terms often used by physicians. The manual, which is presented in the form of a loose-leaf binder, is suitable for use by anyone starting to work in a cancer registry, and most especially for the many who arrive without special training in medicine. Chapters provide general information on the symptoms of cancer, methods of detection, and forms of treatment, and offer a step-by-step guide to the location, collection, extraction, and abstracting of data from all relevant hospital departments, emphasizing procedures of case-finding needed to achieve complete registration. Exercises are included to let readers practice abstracting relevant information from a range of typical hospital reports. Coding is covered in the main chapter, which explains how to convert the diagnosis of cancer into coded form, following the rules developed for ICD-10 and ICD-O. Other chapters cover document management, security and confidentiality, and quality control. The manual concludes with a 90-page course designed to facilitate a thorough understanding of the medical terminology commonly used in cancer centres.