engleski

The role of cancer registry in breast cancer screening programme in Croatia

Breast cancer incidence and mortality rates have been increasing in Croatia over the past 30 years, reaching the ASR(EU) of 73.1/100000 for incidence and 26.9/100000 for mortality in 2004. Stage at diagnosis in 2004 was localized cancer in 36.2%, lymph node metastases in 38.4%, distal metastases in 8.7% and unknown in 19.9% cases. At the end of 2006, mammography screening programme was launched as the first national-based cancer screening programme in Croatia. The target population are women aged 50-69, which is about 560, 000 Croatian women, with two years screening interval. The 21 county institutes of public health are in charge of collaboration with mammographic units, distributing invitations and coordination at the county level, while the programme is centrally coordinated by the Croatian National Institute of Public Health, where the National Cancer Registry is located. For the purpose of screening programme implementation and monitoring, a separate database has been formed for each county (including the data on all detected cancers). The central unit can access each of these databases through a common server located at the Croatian Ministry of Health and Welfare. There are 101 mammografy units participating in the programme. By May 2007, nearly 180, 000 women were invited, and participation rate was 50%. The number of screen-detected cancers was 3.8/1000 mammographies. The Croatian National Cancer Registry will be included in the long term monitoring and evaluation of the programme. For this purpose, a new information item on whether the cancer was screen-detected was introduced in cancer notifications from primary health care and from hospitals, and will be entered in the Registry database at the start of processing of the 2006 data. The cancer registry and the breast cancer screening registry data will be periodically linked to be able to classify incident breast cancer cases as screen-detected, interval, cases in non-participant or in not invited women. For the purpose of long-term evaluation of the programme, cancer registry will monitor breast cancer incidence and mortality trends in screened and nonscreened population. A similar model of monitoring and evaluation is planned also for the colorectal and cervical cancer national screening programmes that will start as pilot programmes by the end of 2007.

breast cancer; screening programme; cancer registry

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