Aims
The Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry (UGICR) is a multi-modular clinical quality registry based at Monash University. The aim of the registry is to collect real-world data to identify unwarranted variation in treatment and outcomes for people diagnosed with upper gastrointestinal cancers; by looking at quality of care indicators (QIs). These QIs cover various parts of a patient’s care pathway including referral, diagnosis, surgical management, medical management, and end-of-life care. This study investigated the variation in QIs in UGICR participants from the oesophagogastric module.
Methods
The UGICR collects participants through an opt out approach, with patients identified through hospital administration data or state cancer registry. Data collectors then review medical records and enter data into the UGICR’s REDCap database. Data from adult patients recruited through the UGICR, and diagnosed with an oesophagogastric cancer between 2016-2023, at 13 participating sites in Victoria, Australia, were used to examine QIs. Only patients that had been diagnosed and received some treatment at the same hospital were included, to ensure more complete data collection.
Results
The dataset included 1669 UGICR participants, predominately male (69 %), with oesophageal, junctional or gastric cancers. QIs were examined by calculating the proportion of patients meeting each quality indicator. Some QI’s had high adherence, and low variability such as histology before treatment (94.9%), and proportion of patients with metastatic cancer who were seen by a medical or radiation oncologist (100%). Other indicators related to surgery (e.g. number nodes examined), or palliative care, demonstrated more variance and lower adherence and require further investigation.
Conclusions
The oesophagogastric module of the UGICR has significant participant recruitment across Victoria and continues to expand. In addition to providing a means to detect variation in quality of care, the UGICR’s whole population capture makes it an ideal platform for registry-based trials and biobanks.