Vollzähligkeitsschätzungen von Krebsregisterdaten in Deutschland

In 1995, a federal cancer registry law became effective in Germany obliging all federal states to set up epidemiological cancer registries. As a result,numerous cancer registries have been established. However, it is essential to know the degree to which all relevant cases are recorded within a registry—particularly for those registries established recently—as only a high degree of completeness can prevent variations in the efficacy of registry procedures from distorting comparative studies. In this study, the completeness of the cancer registries was evaluated indirectly. Incidences for geographical areas covered by a cancer registry were estimated using incidence/mortality ratios of another registry known to have complete data sets. Log-linear models, successfully applied in a separate study, were fitted to incidence/mortality ratios using both the age and sex-specific data of the reference registry. These estimates were then compared with the actual data collected by the newly established registry, allowing the level of completeness to be assessed. The German Epidemiological Cancer Registry Study Group has agreed to this method and the "Dachdokumentation Krebs"—as a member of this group—performs the analyses. The first results of the study are presented in this contribution.