Registry Operations & Management Flashcards

In cancer registry operations, a 'death clearance' procedure is used to:

Answer: Identify unreported cancer cases by matching death certificates to registry files

Death clearance compares death certificate data with registry records to identify cancer deaths not yet captured as registry cases, improving completeness.

A registrar is reviewing a case where the patient received neoadjuvant chemotherapy before surgery. For staging purposes, which stage should be recorded as the 'clinical stage'?

Answer: The stage based on workup before any treatment, including before neoadjuvant therapy

Clinical stage is always based on diagnostic workup completed before any first-course treatment, including neoadjuvant therapy, capturing disease extent at presentation.

Which NAACCR data item captures whether a case was identified through a non-hospital source such as a pathology laboratory or physician office?

Answer: Type of Reporting Source

Type of Reporting Source documents the type of facility or source (e.g., hospital, laboratory, physician office) from which the case was identified.

A cancer registry manager wants to evaluate staff productivity. Which metric is MOST directly useful for this assessment?

Answer: Average number of abstracts completed per staff member per month

Abstracts per staff member per time period is the standard productivity metric used to benchmark workload and allocate registry staffing resources.

When a cancer registry transitions to a new software system, which action should be performed FIRST before go-live?

Answer: Parallel testing by running both old and new systems simultaneously with the same cases

Parallel testing validates that the new system produces results consistent with the old system before fully committing to the transition.

Under the SEER Program, 'complete dates' (month, day, and year) are preferred over partial dates. When only the year of diagnosis is known, the registrar should:

Answer: Record the year with unknown month (99) and unknown day (99) flags

SEER coding rules specify that known date components should be recorded with unknown-value flags (e.g., 99) for missing month and day, preserving partial information.

A CTR reviewing registry operations notices that the percentage of cases with 'unknown' race is 15%. The BEST corrective action is to:

Answer: Implement a more thorough review of all available source documents including face sheets and nursing notes

Thorough secondary source review — including registration face sheets, nursing notes, and other records — is the standard method for resolving unknown demographic data before defaulting to 'unknown.'