CTR Data Quality & Completeness 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which NAACCR data item is used to assess whether a case was identified through active or passive case-finding methods?
- Type of Reporting Source (Correct answer)
- Primary Site
- Sequence Number
- Basis of Diagnosis
Correct answer: Type of Reporting Source
Type of Reporting Source identifies how a case came to the registry's attention, which helps evaluate completeness of case-finding.
Question 2: A registry receives a death certificate for a patient with cancer diagnosed at an out-of-state facility. This case should be abstracted as a:
- Death certificate only (DCO) case (Correct answer)
- Autopsy only case
- Non-analytic case
- Duplicate case
Correct answer: Death certificate only (DCO) case
When the only source of information about a cancer diagnosis is the death certificate, the case is classified as a death certificate only (DCO) case.
Question 3: Which metric best measures a registry's ability to capture all reportable cases within a defined population?
- Case completeness rate (Correct answer)
- Timeliness rate
- Error rate
- Edit failure rate
Correct answer: Case completeness rate
Case completeness rate, often estimated through death certificate linkage or independent case-finding audits, measures how well a registry captures all eligible cases.
Question 4: Under STORE manual guidelines, which condition would cause a case to be flagged as a potential duplicate?
- Same patient name, date of birth, and primary site at different facilities (Correct answer)
- Same histology reported by two different pathologists
- Two primaries diagnosed in the same calendar year
- A case reported by both pathology and radiology
Correct answer: Same patient name, date of birth, and primary site at different facilities
Potential duplicates are identified when the same patient demographic data and cancer site appear in multiple submissions, suggesting the same case was reported more than once.
Question 5: A registry quality control audit finds that 8% of cases are missing the Lymph-vascular Invasion data item. The BEST corrective action is to:
- Implement targeted reabstracting of cases with missing data and retrain staff (Correct answer)
- Remove the data item from the registry database
- Recode all missing values to 'unknown'
- Submit the cases as-is to the state registry
Correct answer: Implement targeted reabstracting of cases with missing data and retrain staff
Reabstracting and retraining address both the existing data gap and the root cause to prevent future missing data.
Question 6: What is the primary purpose of the NAACCR Inter-rater Reliability Study in data quality assessment?
- To measure consistency of abstraction decisions between different registrars (Correct answer)
- To validate facility reporting rates against state benchmarks
- To audit timeliness of case submission
- To confirm accuracy of follow-up information
Correct answer: To measure consistency of abstraction decisions between different registrars
Inter-rater reliability studies compare abstraction decisions across multiple registrars to identify inconsistencies in data interpretation and coding.
Question 7: Which of the following is an example of a 'logic edit' in cancer registry data quality checks?
- Flagging a male patient coded with cervical cancer (Correct answer)
- Checking that a date field contains a valid month
- Verifying that a zip code is five digits
- Confirming that a patient's name is not blank
Correct answer: Flagging a male patient coded with cervical cancer
Logic edits cross-check related fields for clinical plausibility, such as ensuring sex-specific diagnoses align with the patient's recorded sex.
CTR Data Quality & Completeness 2
Which NAACCR data item is used to assess whether a case was identified through active or passive case-finding methods?