Quality and completeness indices.

In the present study, time trends of the main quality indices in the pool of the Italian Network of Cancer Registries (pool AIRT) are presented for the period 1986-1997. The percentage of cases with morphological verification increased from 75% to 83% among males and from 77% to 85% among females. Cases known only from death certificates (DCO) decreased over time in both sexes; in recent years they were about 3% of the whole case-series. Mortality incidence ratio decreased over time, from 66% to 54% among males and from 55% to 48% among females. Also cases with unknown primary site showed a decreasing time tendency. Such quality indices are also presented for specific cancer sites and for elderly subjects (75+ years). The overall trends of quality indices showed an improvement in both the activity of Cancer Registries and of the Health System.