Quality of data from cancer registries in Italy: An appraisal

We report the results of the quality assessment on data collected by cancer registries belonging to the Italian network of Cancer Registries (AIRTUM). For all malignant cancers diagnosed in 2013-2017, overall percentages of cases known from the death certificate only (DCO), and those of cases with cyto-histological confirmation (MV), were provided. The overall percentage of DCOs was small (1.2 %). The percentage of microscopic verification was overall high (87.6 %), with some variations among registries. DCO proportion varied from 0.1 % for cutaneous melanoma to 3.8 % for liver and pancreatic tumours. Differences across sites in MV proportion were linked to the different diagnostics. The rate of cases lost to follow-up was on average very low (0.7 %). This quality evaluation confirmed that data provided by the Italian cancer registries were affordable.