[Population-based cancer registration in Germany. Essentials and perspectives].

Although cancer registration has a long tradition in Germany, wide areas remained blank spaces on the map concerning population-based cancer registration. The situation changed completely when a federal law on cancer registration (KRG, 1995-1999) took effect. Now all federal states have established population-based cancer registries on a legal basis. In spite of the uniform model of cancer registration anchored in the KRG, 16 different models have developed in Germany. Completeness of cancer registration was constantly improved over the last several years. In addition to the Saarland cancer registry, further registries can now provide a high grade of registration for all cancer sites. Essential tasks, such as public reporting and support of cancer research, can now be better fulfilled. Even taking the great developments in cancer registration in Germany into consideration, some deficits still continue to exist. These deficits are mostly caused by heterogeneity and missing compatibility of the cancer registry laws of the federal states. After the focus of cancer registration was on developing valid registries,now the focus has to be changed to the usability of cancer registry data. These data can be used e. g. for research on etiology and evaluation of programs on early cancer detection. Scientists in the field of cancer epidemiology, public health, and cancer care are invited to use data of cancer registries for research and evaluation projects intensively.