Introduction

the World Health Organization classifies Non-Communicable Diseases as the leading cause of global mortality, with 71% of deaths associated with malignant neoplasms. In 2020, approximately 19.3 million new cancer cases and 10 million cancer-related deaths were reported worldwide, with the Americas accounting for 20.9% of global incidence. In Brazil, the National Cancer Institute estimates 704,000 new cancer cases for the 2023-2025 period, with breast and prostate cancers representing 15% of the new cases each. Age over 50 years, genetic factors, family history, and others are risk factors for breast cancer.

Objective

to evaluate the trend of incompleteness in the variables of the Hospital Cancer Registry for cases of malignant breast neoplasms across all hospitals in the Oncology Care Network of Espírito Santo.

Methods

this is a retrospective time-series study using secondary data from the Tumor Registration Forms of the Hospital Cancer Registries of the Oncology Care Network of Espírito Santo between 2000 and 2020. Data incompleteness was classified as excellent (<5%), good (5%-10%), regular (10%-20%), poor (20%-50%), and very poor (>50%), based on the percentage of missing information. The Mann–Kendall test was used to assess temporal trends, and the Friedman test was applied to evaluate the quality classifications of the historical series.

Results

a total of 16,587 breast cancer cases were recorded in the Hospital Cancer Registries of Espírito Santo between 2000 and 2020. The variables alcohol use (p<0.001), smoking (p<0.001), family history of cancer (p<0.001), and marital status (p<0.001) showed a statistically significant decreasing trend in incompleteness. On the other hand, variables related to diagnosis/treatment and tumor characteristics exhibited a lower trend of incompleteness over time, with an increase in completeness. These variables included the type of diagnostic exam performed (p=0.03), previous diagnoses and treatments (p=0.008), key diagnostic bases for the tumor (p<0.001), tumor laterality (p=0.008), and presence of more than one primary tumor (p=0.01).

Conclusion

the scores for the epidemiological variables in the Hospital Cancer Registries of women with breast cancer in Espírito Santo were predominantly classified as “excellent” in terms of completeness. However, clinically important variables, such as Tumor, Node, Metastasis staging, showed a decline in completeness throughout most of the historical series.

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