Completeness of hospital cancer case reporting from the SEER Program of the National Cancer Institute.

Background: To ascertain the quality of data entering a population-based reporting system, an essential requirement is to study levels of completeness of case-ascertainment and reporting. This study represents an effort to quantify completeness of case reporting in the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) Program of the National Cancer Institute.

Methods: Hospitals in each of the participating SEER areas were stratified according to their annual hospital cancer caseload for the year 1987.

Characteristics of cancer patients under the age of 20 at medical centers in Israel and the West Bank: a preliminary study.

This paper describes the demographic experience on 373 young cancer patients (less than 20 years of age) at two oncology centers initiated in Israel by one medical team in 1975-1977. These units are the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center (AHMC), which predominantly serves a Jewish population (103 cases); and the West Bank Cancer Unit (WBCU), which provides similar care services to the Arab population of the West Bank (270 cases). The two centers have the unique feature of serving two populations residing in close relationship but still differing in many cultural and socioeconomic characteristics.

Study of completeness of the surveillance, epidemiology and end results (SEER) program case ascertainment by hospital size and casefinding source.

Factors that may enter into the completeness/incompleteness of reporting include: 1. The competence and diligence of staff. 2.

Cancer patterns at medical centers in Israel and the West Bank.

This paper describes the oncological experience on 7,216 patients at two cancer units initiated by one medical team in 1975-1977 at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Israel (predominantly serving a Jewish population, 4,671 cases) and at the West Bank Cancer Unit (WBCU), which serves an Arab population (2,545 cases). The two centers have the unique feature of serving two populations residing in close geographic proximity but differing in many cultural and socioeconomic characteristics. Data from the ongoing cancer registries in these two centers are summarized and compare the demographic characteristics of the two study groups, anatomic sites of cancer, methods of diagnosis and extent of disease.

Breast cancer at medical centers in Israel, the West Bank, and the United States.

A comparison is made of the characteristics of female breast cancer patients, their diseases, and treatment practices in medical centers in Israel and the West Bank of the Jordan River. This experience is further compared with tumor registry data from a major medical center in the United States. Differences are found in the age distributions of patients, marital status, parity, stage of disease at diagnosis, delay between onset of symptoms and diagnosis as well as between diagnosis and treatment.

Late effects of radiation therapy for cancer of the uterine cervix.

This report presents follow-up information on 497 women diagnosed with cancer of the uterine cervix in Connecticut and California between 1932 and 1951 who received only radiation as their initial course of therapy. Patients entered into the study were all treated before age 55 and all were five-year-survivors following treatment in order to eliminate early deaths due to the cervical cancer. Three radiologic dosage groups (high, medium, and low) were formed with 93, 244, and 160 patients, respectively.

Marital and reproductive histories of women with cancer of the breast and their sisters.

In a study of 45 pairs of sisters-each pair including one sister with cancer of the breast and one without the disease-differences in marital and reproductive histories were observed. These differences included less frequent marriage, later marriage, fewer children, and a longer delay between date of marriage and the first pregnancy in the sisters with the disease. These findings appear to confirm presently known reproductive risk factors for cancer of the breast, but they also raise the possibility that unknown behavioral factors influencing the endocrine system may be delaying marriage and pregnancy.

Staging of cancer of the colon and cancer of the rectum.

A retrospective analysis of 1,826 cases (924 colon, 902 rectal) from ten institutions provided the basis of this study on the staging of cancer of the colon and rectum. The general rules of the American Joint Committee on the relationship between times and the staging of cancer have been followed. These represent modifications of the originally formulated TNM system of the Union Internationale Contre Le Cancer (UICC) which has been designed as a clinical-diagnostic classification, not applicable to cancer of inaccessible sites or structures requiring postsurgical treatment pathologic assessment of therapeutically removed specimens.

Time trends in survival in acute lymphocytic leukemia.

Comparison of patients under 20 years of age with acute lymphocytic leukemia diagnosed in 1955-64 with those whose disease was diagnosed in 1965-69 revealed a marked improvement in median survival time, from 9.5 to 16.8 months.