Quality of care in women with stage I cervical cancer.

A study was done to assess the quality of care received by women with stage I cervical cancer. Through a population-based registry serving 13 counties of western Washington, including Seattle, we identified all women residents in whom local-stage cervical cancer developed between January 1974 and December 1978 (N=369). The cases were subdivided into stage IA (microinvasive) and stage IB (frankly invasive). Quality of care was defined as optimal or suboptimal at the outset of the study; this definition applied to all cases. In patients with stage IB cervical cancer, striking relationships were found between the quality of care and initial and referral hospital characteristics and physician's specialty. No differences were found, however, in three-year survival between the optimally and suboptimally treated groups.