Study of completeness of the surveillance, epidemiology and end results (SEER) program case ascertainment by hospital size and casefinding source.

Factors that may enter into the completeness/incompleteness of reporting include: 1. The competence and diligence of staff. 2. Familiarity with the record systems used within each hospital department. This limited review suggested that hospitals employing their own staff for case ascertainment achieved somewhat higher completeness of reporting rates compared with institutions that relied on central registry circuit riders to pick up cases. 3. Where cases are identified through computer listings by diagnosis, errors in the coding of some cases may result in the exclusion of these cases. 4. The use of ambiguous diagnostic terms may contribute to missing cases.