Collecting clues: Cancer registries might have an answer

The data gathered in these repositories play a key role in the constant struggle against cancer morbidity and mortality.

By Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli, AMNews correspondent. April 17, 2006.

Elyce H. Cardonick, MD, didn't begin her cancer registry with the first pregnant cancer patient she treated. It was after she saw several and was struck by the scarcity of related case information that she started the collection.

"The last thing people think about is walking into an oncologist's office pregnant," says Dr. Cardonick, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the division of maternal fetal medicine at Cooper University Hospital in Hamilton, N.J. She now maintains her own cancer registry of 240 women from around the world.

"Approaches are so individualized. Collecting cases can lead to a more standardized way of caring for these women. With the registry, I can say, 'Here are 80 others with breast cancer who were pregnant, and this was their treatment; here are their outcomes.' ... It gives the doctor and the patient confidence."

Dr. Cardonick's effort is but one example of how cancer registries function on a variety of levels -- locally, nationally and internationally. Overall, these intertwined repositories are an important part of efforts to reach a better understanding of diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

The concept behind them has been in use for centuries. Records indicate that the earliest observations of patterns of disease occurred in the 17th century, as elders gathered death information for publication in London's weekly Bill of Mortality. By the 18th century, Bernardino Ramazzini, in his De Morbis Artificum Diatriba, noted an increased risk of breast cancer in nuns, and Sir Percival Potts linked scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps to soot exposure.