Reporting of resected colonic carcinomas. Assessment of practices in 8 French counties in 1995.

Objectives - The objective of this work was to study the reporting of resec ted colonic carcinomas and to compare them with Consensus Guidelines publis hed in January 1998. Methods - The study included 535 colonic carcinomas collected in 8 French r egistries in 1995, and chosen by drawing lots. For each report, the presenc e of the information requested by the Guidelines was looked for. Three synt hetic variables were built: 2 scores and one qualitative at 2 classes. The influence of patients, tumour and health care system's characteristics was analyzed on the 3 dependent variables. Results - Some important variations were observed for information's percent s in reporting. In monovariate analysis, scores were significantly influenc ed by cancer's sub-location, aera of patient's residence, surgical center, type of laboratories and pathologist case volume. In multivariate analysis, significant heterogeneity in practices remained between geographical aeras . Type of laboratories and pathologist case volume affected differently dep endent variables. Conclusion - This study shows the necessity to assess the practices before consensus because of the impact of pathological forms in therapeutic decisi ons and variations observed.