About this Research Topic
Population-based cancer registries are an essential information source for quantifying the impact of cancer in a population and its evolution, planning and evaluation of cancer control policies and healthcare systems. In the last decades, the information provided by cancer registries has improved dramatically in quality and quantity. Technological advances and record linkage have contributed to data improvement. Therefore, clinical data collected by cancer registries such as stage, treatment, co-morbidity, etc. contribute to treatment effectiveness assessment and identification of inequality in health care access at the population level. The reliability and utility of the information provided by cancer registries depend on the quality of the data collected. On the other hand, cancer registries' data harmonisation is crucial for data use and comparability.
Complete and unbiased population-based cancer registry data contribute to advances in epidemiological and clinical research. Cancer registries collect and combine data from very heterogeneous multiple information sources in order to pool into a large common dataset. A harmonization process is required before and after linkage following local, national, or international standards. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the European Network of Cancer Registries in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the International Association of Cancer Registries have played an essential role in data quality improvement and harmonization.
The aim of this Research Topic is to share experience on cancer data quality and harmonization in Europe. We welcome papers that focus on, but are not limited to:
1) Challenges in data comparability among population-based cancer registries;
2) Description of tools and activities for improving cancer data quality and harmonization;
3) Assessment of the data quality in population-based cancer registries;
4) Challenges in the data quality and harmonization related to National data protection regulations;
5) Impact of data quality and harmonization on cancer indicators;
6) Epidemiological and Statistical methods for improving data comparability.
We are mainly interested in original research, methods, review and systematic review manuscripts. All population-based cancer registries as well as international institutions and research groups are potential contributors to the Research Topic. The manuscript should have a European perspective, involving at least two countries.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.
Complete and unbiased population-based cancer registry data contribute to advances in epidemiological and clinical research. Cancer registries collect and combine data from very heterogeneous multiple information sources in order to pool into a large common dataset. A harmonization process is required before and after linkage following local, national, or international standards. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the European Network of Cancer Registries in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the International Association of Cancer Registries have played an essential role in data quality improvement and harmonization.
The aim of this Research Topic is to share experience on cancer data quality and harmonization in Europe. We welcome papers that focus on, but are not limited to:
1) Challenges in data comparability among population-based cancer registries;
2) Description of tools and activities for improving cancer data quality and harmonization;
3) Assessment of the data quality in population-based cancer registries;
4) Challenges in the data quality and harmonization related to National data protection regulations;
5) Impact of data quality and harmonization on cancer indicators;
6) Epidemiological and Statistical methods for improving data comparability.
We are mainly interested in original research, methods, review and systematic review manuscripts. All population-based cancer registries as well as international institutions and research groups are potential contributors to the Research Topic. The manuscript should have a European perspective, involving at least two countries.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.
Keywords: Cancer registry, population-based, data quality, data harmonization, cancer surveillance
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
