Clinical highlights from the National Cancer Data Base, 1999

The National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint project of the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society, collects and analyzes data from a wide variety of sources throughout the U nited States, including small community hospitals. Due to this unique repor ting system, individual facilities can compare their own data with the aggr egate data from the NCDB, using their findings to evaluate local patient ca re practices. This article highlights the principal findings of the NCDB and Patient Care Evaluation articles published in 1998 on breast, prostate, cervical, endom etrial, gallbladder, head and neck, nasopharyngeal, rectal, thyroid, and va ginal cancers, as well as on melanoma, brain tumors, and Hodgkin's disease. With more than Jive million cancer cases in the NCDB for the years between 1985 and 1995, sufficient numbers of even rare cancers have been accrued to permit some types of epidemiologic and clinical assessments.