Klin Onkol 2007; 20(6): 399-404.
This work is aimed to present data-based quality and usability of the Czech National Cancer Registry (NCR) and relevant estimates of relative survival of cancer patients in the Czech population. In August 2007, an international study EUROCARE-4 published for the Czech Republic decreased probability of 5-yr survival in comparison with average value of the other involved European countries. These fi ndings were refused as strongly biased by leaders of the Czech Oncology Society. The bias however cannot be attributed to the EUROCARE study itself, it was due to erroneous and non-representative export of the Czech data. Data of NCR can guarantee representative monitoring of mortality with 100% population coverage. Instead of the NCR data, the EUROCARE study obtained only partial export of regionally based data with only 8% coverage. The situation inevitably resulted in strongly biased outcome that
cannot be generalized for the whole population. Here we present an audit of more than 1.3 million of records accessible in the NCR since 1977. The analyses proved consistently growing quality of the database as well as its usability for the standardized health care assessment. Based on reference period 1995 – 2003, we estimated 5-yr relative survival in the way that methodically corresponds to
the EUROCARE-4 study. The results clearly document that survival outcomes reached by current Czech oncology are comparable to those reported in the EUROCARE-4 study.
