CTR Data Quality & Completeness 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When a cancer registry performs a casefinding audit using death certificates, the key measure calculated is:
- Death certificate only (DCO) percentage (Correct answer)
- Case fatality rate
- Cause-specific survival rate
- Crude incidence rate
Correct answer: Death certificate only (DCO) percentage
The DCO percentage from death certificate linkage indicates cases that were not captured prospectively, serving as a proxy for registry completeness.
Question 2: Which NAACCR data standard defines the required data items, their permitted codes, and edit specifications for central registry submissions?
- NAACCR Volume II — Data Standards and Data Dictionary (Correct answer)
- NAACCR Volume I — Data Exchange Standards
- SEER Program Coding and Staging Manual
- CoC STORE Manual
Correct answer: NAACCR Volume II — Data Standards and Data Dictionary
NAACCR Volume II specifies data item definitions, coding instructions, and the edit set used to validate submissions to central registries.
Question 3: A registrar discovers that a surgical pathology report and a cytology report for the same patient describe different histologies. To ensure data quality, the registrar should:
- Code the histology from the most specific specimen type, typically surgical pathology (Correct answer)
- Code the histology from the first report received
- Average the two histology codes
- Report both histologies as separate primaries
Correct answer: Code the histology from the most specific specimen type, typically surgical pathology
SEER coding rules prioritize the most specific tissue diagnosis; surgical pathology generally supersedes cytology when both are available for the same site.
Question 4: Under CoC standards, what is the maximum number of days from date of first contact at a facility to the date a case must be abstracted?
- 6 months (Correct answer)
- 3 months
- 1 year
- 30 days
Correct answer: 6 months
CoC Standard 4.1 requires that cases be abstracted within 6 months of the date of first contact for analytic cases.
Question 5: A quality review reveals that a registrar consistently codes 'unknown' for Perineural Invasion when the pathology report does not explicitly mention it. The correct approach is to:
- Code 'not applicable' or the appropriate 'not documented' code per SEER/STORE rules (Correct answer)
- Continue coding 'unknown' as it is conservative
- Query the pathologist to confirm absence before coding
- Leave the field blank
Correct answer: Code 'not applicable' or the appropriate 'not documented' code per SEER/STORE rules
Current coding manuals provide specific 'not documented' codes distinct from 'unknown,' and registrars should apply these accurately per item-specific instructions.
Question 6: Which type of registry quality measure evaluates whether cases in the database are free from errors in individual data fields?
- Data accuracy (Correct answer)
- Data completeness
- Data timeliness
- Data comparability
Correct answer: Data accuracy
Data accuracy assesses whether individual coded values correctly reflect the information in the source documents.
Question 7: A central registry rejects a hospital's submission because 4% of records fail the 'Diagnosis Year vs. Date of Birth' edit. This is an example of which quality control mechanism?
- Automated edit check at submission (Correct answer)
- Manual reabstraction audit
- Interagency data comparison
- Case-finding completeness review
Correct answer: Automated edit check at submission
Automated edit checks run at submission validate logical relationships between fields, catching errors before data enters the central registry.
CTR Data Quality & Completeness 3
When a cancer registry performs a casefinding audit using death certificates, the key measure calculated is: