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Governing agencies have different follow-up target rates
and different timelines for considering a patient lost, but
the principle of following all alive patients until they die,
remains critical for providing survival statistics.
The Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of
Surgeons (ACoS) requires approved cancer programs to meet
or exceed the target rate of 90 percent successful follow-up.
SEER cancer registries must meet or exceed 95% successful
follow-up. The follow-up rate is calculated on all eligible
patients, both living and dead. The successful follow-up rate
for eligible living patients is set by the CoC at 80 percent.
The table below specifies cases that can be excluded from
calculations.
Types of Cases Excluded from Calculations
of CoC Follow-up Rates for Approved Cancer Programs
Nonanalytic cases
Carcinoma in-situ of the cervix
Benign and borderline histologies
In-situ and localized basal and squamous cell carcinomas of
the skin
Foreign residents
Patients whose age exceeds 100 years
The CoC considers a case to be delinquent if no follow-up
information has been obtained within fifteen months after
the date of last contact. An institution may request its registry
to follow certain patients with various tumor types, sites,
or stages more frequently than annually.
Names of patients who are lost to follow-up (delinquent)
should remain in the follow-up system until follow-up is obtained.
The follow-up system must be audited periodically to determine
that all patients lost to follow-up remain in the system and
are continually pursued for current follow-up.
The CoC requests follow-up statistics at the time of an institution
survey; the follow-up calculations are part of the survey
application. Most registry software systems have a programmed
report for calculating these statistics. Click here to view
the standard CoC
Follow-up Calculations Table.
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