#09-6: Quality and Efficiency of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Reporting to Cancer Reg

Cancer Prevention Instit Of California, Fremont CA

Investigators

Abstract

Due to the invasiveness, health risks, and imperfect diagnostic accuracy of liver biopsy, as well as the availability of diagnostic imaging techniques, a large proportion of HCC is not histologically confirmed. Furthermore, most HCC patients present at an advanced stage with limited or no treatment options, precluding extensive clinical work-up. In the combined SEER registries in 2005, only 61% of newly diagnosed liver cancer cases were confirmed by positive histology. By comparison, 98% of breast, 97% of prostate, and 97% of colorectal cancers were confirmed by positive histology. Because a high proportion of tumors are identified by cancer registries based on pathology reports, increasingly so with the incorporation of electronic pathology-based reporting, HCC cases may evade routine mechanisms of cancer surveillance. These cases may be identified later through death certificate follow-back at higher overall cost, worse timeliness, and possibly with an incomplete cancer registry record.