DATA QUALITY AND QUALITY-CONTROL OF A POPULATION-BASED CANCER REGISTRY - EXPERIENCE IN FINLAND

Cancer registries should pay great attention to the quality of their d ata, both in terms of completeness (all cancer patients in the populat ion are registered) and accuracy (data on individual cancer patients m ust be correct). In addition to technical measures in the data process ing, different types of checks and comparisons should be routine pract ice. Active research policy and ambitious, research-oriented staff wit h competence in medicine, biostatistics and computer science are essen tial in terms of maintaining good data quality.