gms | German Medical Science

The clinical cancer registry of “Tumorzentrum Land Brandenburg” works since 1994. It is a population-based (The population of the German federal country Brandenburg is about 2,6 million people.), clinical cancer registry and documents data of cancer patients from diagnosis, to therapy till oncological follow-up care or death. Right now we are looking over data of 110.000 cancer patients. 6400 of these patients developed multiple primary cancers. The most frequent primary cancer in this registry, sorted after ICD-O, is the female breast cancer (C50) followed by urinary bladder (C67), prostatic cancer (C61) and colon cancer (C18). In this paper we will examine the long time complications, especially the development of second primary cancers, which are very important for cancer survivors. For the survival, prognosis and the quality of life of the patients it is essential to know the risk of developing second primary cancer for every cancer site. If this risk is known it is possible to screen second primary cancer by oncological follow-up care and to diagnose the second cancer in a very early stadium. By this way, second primary cancer can often be treated curative, for example in the case of female breast cancer. Because of the much improved cancer care over last years patients with primary female breast cancer have an increased chance to survive now. That’s why there are more problems with long time complications, for instance second primary cancer. In the data material of the clinical cancer registry of “Tumorzentrum Land Brandenburg” there are 1151 patients with primary female breast cancer and second primary cancer. The most frequent documented second primary cancer is breast cancer too, followed by corpus uteri and colon cancer. Based on the data of the registry we will examine, which rate of second primary cancers are diagnosed in an early stadium, which shows the use of oncological follow-up care. The observed rate of second primary cancers will be estimated and compared with the expected rate of primary cancer of normal population. By this way the relative risk of developing second primary cancer will be calculated. The paper demonstrates that clinical cancer registries are powerful means for the quality control and improvement of oncological care especially regarding the prevention or early recognition of long time complications. This is again supporting the request to establish clinical cancer registries in all areas of Germany.