ASCOT: a comprehensive clinical database for gastro-oesophageal cancer surgery

We report the development of a multicentre prospective database for gastro- oesophageal cancer surgery. The ASCOT project aims to collect detailed pros pective data on co-morbidity, surgery, stage and outcome in a large cohort of patients from a wide variety of hospitals in the UK. We describe the rat ionale for the initiative, the process of defining the dataset, the databas e software and structure, the system for data recording and retrieval and t he operating rules of the ASCOT co-operative group. Thirty Trusts are curre ntly submitting data, and the first 1000 cases have now been entered. A fir st annual report has been produced, showing anonymized comparative figures for patient characteristics and outcomes of interest, and a second is due s hortly. The collection of detailed comparable data, including co-morbidity evaluation, on a large scale is likely to prove valuable for unit specialis t accreditation, surgeon re-validation, audit and research. (C) 2001 Harcou rt Publishers Ltd.