SURGICAL REPORTING INSTRUMENT DESIGNED TO IMPROVE OUTCOME DATA IN HEAD AND NECK-CANCER TRIALS

Precise reporting of surgical staging and operative data in multi-inst itutional protocol studies could provide a number of benefits: 1) fewe r cases would be discarded because of inadequate data, 2) staff review time would be reduced, 3) there would be assurance that participating surgeons were performing similar operations on similar tumors, 4) the resulting precision in stratification should improve the likelihood o f achieving accurate comparison of the treatment options under study, and 5) by comparing the surgical parameters with local-regional contro l of disease, the specific factors that have a statistically significa nt correlation with outcome could be identified. This paper presents a computer-based, anatomically oriented reporting instrument that shoul d improve the reliability of surgical data available to multi-institut ional protocols.