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Establishing Accra Population-Based Cancer Registry

Background: The African Cancer Organization (ACO) seeks to establish Accra Population-Based Cancer Registry (ACR). The whole idea is to collect, store and analyze data on persons with cancer to provide complete, accurate and timely cancer report for interventional programs. Such information would guide us to monitor patient care, prioritize and allocate resources effectively, give understanding of the things we do not yet know, and also act as a driver for policy development for the urgent need of comprehensive cancer control in Ghana. Countries require cancer surveillance programs to collect and analyze data on the scale of the cancer burden in each country. These are urgently needed in Africa as cancer data sources are scarce. Data can help to evaluate the impact of prevention, early detection/screening, treatment and palliative care programs. The proposed population-based cancer registry will help to act as a driver for policy development and program evaluation as recommended by the WHO. ACR intends to capture cancer cases diagnosed and/or treated within the Greater Accra region of Ghana and then further extend to cover the Central, Eastern, Western and the Volta regions of Ghana later. Aim: The goal of ACR to collect, store and analyze data on persons with cancer to generate incidence, prevalence, trends, mortality, and survival rates which is required to help develop a realistic and sustainable cancer control plan for Ghana. Methods: Cancer registry staff will be trained to abstract cancer cases diagnosed and/or treated within the southern regional geography of Ghana using a customized cancer notification form designed to capture detailed information on cancer patient demographics, tumor details, treatment, reporting sources and follow-up information based on both analytic and nonanalytic active case-finding reportability methods. These cases will then be classified and coded using the ICD-O-3, FIGO and/or SEER Summary Staging 2000 Manual. The data will be stored in customized cancer registry software which will be configured with various address codes from the registry geography. The cancer registry software checks for duplicate cases, data edits and consolidation. The software tracks down duplicate records and multiple primaries using a probability matching and consistency checking for impossible or rare cases. Conclusion: Establishing a cancer registry in Africa is challenging but very possible. Conflicts of interests are common norms among new cancer registries. With a good budget and working plan backed by few sincere and dedicated staff, it will be very possible to sustain the registry to capture all cancer cases within the catchment area, to take advantage of available modern technology to produce timely results. ACO is by this seeking for partnership to raise the needed support to embark on this national cancer registry campaign in the region.