Cancer record is useless

Women in South Africa have a one in eight lifetime chance of developing cancer and men a one in six lifetime risk. Yet the registry that keeps track of all cancer cases in the country is seven years out of date.

"Properly functioning and effective cancer registries are essential to estimate cancer incidence rates in the general population," said Dr Samuel Fourie, chairman of the South African Society for Clinical and Radiation Oncologists.

"Without an effective cancer registry, healthcare planning can come down to guesswork and thumbsuck figures," he said.

DA deputy health spokesman Denise Robinson said South Africa was not included in the International Agency for Research on Cancer reports because it did not produce statistics every three years.

The National Cancer Registry was started in 1986, but lagged after the oncologist responsible for it emigrated to Australia.

It was only in 2010 that new leaders and staff for the registry were appointed, said Dr Elvira Singh, a public health specialist at the National Health Laboratory Service, under which the registry now falls.

In 2010, the data was 10 years old. Staff have managed to catch up years of data since then, but, "with the current staff and funding", the backlog would still take more than three years to clear, Singh said.

The registry needed a significant increase in staff, IT capacity and infrastructure if the backlog of data was to be eliminated. No additional funds have been received, Singh said. "The IT infrastructure is outdated and not suited to the needs of the business," she added.

Regulations signed into law in 2011 require all doctors who diagnose cancer to report their cases, in addition to the pathologists who usually submit cancer reports.

Pilot projects have been started to collect cancer data from government doctors. Singh said "reporting from these sites has been poor".

"Public-sector infrastructure does not accommodate electronic reporting and this means healthcare workers must physically complete a form and post it into specially designed registry collection boxes, which is a time-consuming task."

Lauren Pretorius, CEO of Campaigning for Cancer, said: "Just as it is the responsibility of every medical and dental practitioner to report a cancer case, [our organisation] urges cancer patients to check with their doctor if their details have been submitted to the National Cancer Registry."

The children's cancer registry, started years ago by Professor Cyril Karabus, is up to date. The Choc Childhood Cancer Foundation pays the salaries of five data capturers and works with paediatric oncologists to keep a functional registry.