Completeness of Fars Province Deaths Registry on Cancer Death using Capture Recaptures Method

Incidence and prevalence of cancer is increasing worldwide, especially in the low and middle income countries, including I.R o Iran. Valid data is needed to measure burden of cancer and take appropriate decision towards cancer control. Due to limitation of cancer registrations it is hard to make an inference about cancer in Iran. It is important to measure how complete and valid is the report of cancer incidence and mortality.
Material & We prepared mortality registry (source 1) and cancer registry (source 2) data from the health deputy in Fars province. In addition, we collected cancer cases from different hospitals (source3) between 2000 and 2005. We followed the cancer patients from the date of diagnosis up to the date of death.. We selected 10 most common cancer types in this study. If any of the patients died during 2003-2005 enter to this study. We compared mortality data from the three sources using capture recapture method using log linear modeling. We collected 44863 data in which 9401was evaluated and finally 2232 enter to the study. Sensitivity of the mortality registry was 58% and based on the best model estimated number of cases was 3309 instead of the observed number. Coverage of the mortality registry for cancer death was weak leading to an underestimation in the mortality rate of the Fars Province. Improvement of the mortality registry is needed before making any firm decision about burden of cancer.