Quality of data from cancer registries in Italy: An appraisal.

We report the results of the quality assessment on data collected by cancer registries belonging to the Italian network of Cancer Registries (AIRTUM). For all malignant cancers diagnosed in 2013-2017, overall percentages of cases known from the death certificate only (DCO), and those of cases with cyto-histological confirmation (MV), were provided. The overall percentage of DCOs was small (1.2 %). The percentage of microscopic verification was overall high (87.6 %), with some variations among registries. DCO proportion varied from 0.1 % for cutaneous melanoma to 3.8 % for liver and pancreatic tumours. Differences across sites in MV proportion were linked to the different diagnostics. The rate of cases lost to follow-up was on average very low (0.7 %). This quality evaluation confirmed that data provided by the Italian cancer registries were affordable.