CESR technical report 1: the quality and usefulness of the NSW Clinical Cancer Registry Minimum Dataset and Colorectal Dataset Extension for colorectal cancer services research

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Population-based studies of care and outcomes are essential to monitor the uptake of evidence-based treatment guidelines and identify groups most at risk of receiving suboptimal care or experiencing poor outcomes. With the development of locally-managed Clinical Cancer Registries (ClinCR) in public facilities in NSW since 2006, ‘patterns of care’ studies which previously relied on the collection of clinical information through time- and resource-intensive surveys or medical record audits now have the potential to be conducted through linkage of routinely collected data. However there is little experience with the use of ClinCR data for research. The purpose of this report is to assess the quality, coverage and completeness of ClinCR data for use in colorectal cancer services research, and to assess the feasibility of developing surgical process and outcomes indicators that rely on ClinCR data items.