Estimating the cost of operating cancer registries: Experience in Colombia.

Background: Maintaining population-based registries requires adequate and sustained resources; however, to date there has been no systematic evaluation to identify the resource needs for cancer registration in most countries, including Colombia. A systematic assessment of the costs can quantify the funding required and identify processes to improve efficiency of cancer registries.

Methods: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) International Registry Costing Tool (IntRegCosting Tool) was tailored specifically for the Colombian registries and was used to collect resource use data from five regional population-based cancer registries: Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Cali, Manizales, and Pasto.