A National Cancer Staging Program

"Staging" (Collaborative Stage) refers to understanding the extent of cancer within the body—especially whether or not the disease has spread.

The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer has a strategic initiative dedicated to National Cancer Staging, guided by its Surveillance Advisory Group.

The Surveillance Advisory Group consists of national stakeholders who provide recommendations in support of National Cancer Staging Program goals, which include:

• • Supporting better cancer control information by facilitating national cancer staging information
• • Achieving national, population-based, electronic staging data for four major cancers—breast, colorectal, lung and prostate—for cases diagnosed on or after January 1, 2010.

These goals are being achieved by assisting provinces and territories with plans to collect standard data; by identifying electronic tools for capturing data; by improving algorithms for handling data, and by sharing best practices.

The mandate of the National Cancer Staging Program is to create better data, better analysis and better movement of knowledge into practice and policy actions.

This will be achieved by focusing on three priority areas:

1. National linkages/integration: coordinating with existing structures relating to cancer staging

2. Provincial/territorial strategies: implementing plans that expand the scope of “Stage” data collection through electronic platforms, while improving data quality through use

3. Synoptic pathology reporting: working with the Canadian Association of Pathologists to promote the adoption and implementation of pan-Canadian standards for cancer pathology reporting.

Milestones

In all provinces and territories, project plans are now entering the implementation phase. The plans are designed to focus on increasing cancer registry efficiencies and data quality in order to increase the scope of stage data collection. Capturing population-based Collaborative Stage data means information can be used for evidence-based treatment decisions, planning and research—all positively influencing patient outcomes.

Collection of standardized Collaborative Stage data is enabled by comprehensive pathology reporting. To improve this, the Canadian Association of Pathologists formally endorsed the College of American Pathologists (CAP) cancer protocols as a pan-Canadian content standard for all cancer pathology reporting.

To support their adoption, the Partnership and the Canadian Association of Pathologists have hosted four education sessions on the new CAP protocols by their primary authors. They are available here.

Outcomes

The National Cancer Staging Program facilitates pan-Canadian, comprehensive, population-based data on staging. This enables evidence-based decision-making for predicting prognosis and supporting treatment of disease, surveillance, quality monitoring and reporting, and system management.

The program strengthens cancer control for Canadians by providing a framework for better understanding patterns in patient care. It does this by enabling interventions such as the evaluation of screening programs.

In addition, by providing links to other relevant data sets, the program will enhance provincial/territorial, national and international cancer surveillance.