AB 89. Lung cancer registry and software solution

Background: The aim of this paper is to present our experience in the development and everyday use of the hospital lung cancer (LC) registry and our information technology (IT) solution.

Patients and methods: In 2009, the IASLC Project questionnaire (International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer) was translated and localized into Serbian. In January 2010, after a few months of paper based questionnaire preparation (20 pages) and education of involved doctors from the department of pulmonary oncology, data collection has been started. Simultaneously with data collection using paper forms, a dedicated software for the registry support was created. The total of 1.213 and 1.295 lung cancer patients were registered in the first (2010) and second year (2011) respectively.

Results: The applied software has some special features as an automatic calculation: of the N status, M status, Stage and drug doses. After including new modules for therapy delivery and check-up visits, the application, which started as a registry, has evolved into a complete IT solution for LC patients’ survey. The software has predefined individual and epidemiological reports and export capabilities for further statistical analyses. In the beginning, only doctors from the oncology department were involved, and now all doctors are using software.

Conclusions: It is not easy to start and operate a new registry, especially of lung cancer (questionnaire and software design and development, staff education). The registry maintenance is not simple either, as it requires constant innovations and improvements, auditing, data quality control. But the registry provides valuable information for the doctors’ daily work with patients, epidemiological analysis and scientific research.