Standard pediatric oncology data and information technology: necessities for cancer care management.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in children and survivors require life time follow-up. There is a growing recognition of the need to base cancer control policies on accurate, detailed and timely information on cancer management and outcomes. Coordination and central documentation ensure quality of treatment and permit clinical and scientific investigations. The combined data thus obtained create a comprehensive picture of disease, leading to more effective prevention and cure. Medical information can be gathered, processed and analyzed in different ways and the importance of precise language cannot be overestimated. All medical activity arises from the ability to observe and communicate intelligibly and a lack of standardized documentation leads to insufficient integration of clinical work. The Minimal Standard data set is the result of a global effort to establish a common structure and vocabulary for electronic reports. In addition, information technology combines research aspects of decision support and clinical documentation, allowing formal representation of general protocols, calculating of a particular therapy for a patient, data acquisition in the clinics. Our aim in this papers is to stress the need for standard pediatric oncology data and information technology as an approach to cancer care management.