Care of cancer patients in thirty-one Italian general hospitals. Methodological aspects and general findings.

A large sample of cancer patients was reviewed over a two-year period (1978-1979) in 31 general and community hospitals representing five Italian regions, differing in terms of health care organization. Two thousand four hundred and six patients had breast cancer, 1692 lung cancer, 303 non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, 277 ovarian cancer and 235 Hodgkin's lymphoma. Relevant information was collected from medical records through specific pre-standardized and tested forms. The paper discusses the results obtained with respect to (a) general descriptive data of the population; (b) completeness and reliability of recorded data (e.g. staging, histological classification, therapy); and (c) accuracy and completeness of the follow-up. Consistency of the information obtained on selected items with published series of patients suggests that this methodology is worth a wider testing as a simple, inexpensive tool for routinely monitoring the care of cancer patients and the impact on it of organizational and educational interventions.