Approximately 1,300 Cancer Registrars from hospital based, central, and national cancer registries throughout the United States will attend the 34th Annual Educational Conference of the National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA) in Minneapolis, MN, from April 28 to May 1, 2008. The NCRA Conference is the largest educational program for Cancer Registrars in the world. The NCRA Conference will provide a forum for Cancer Registrars to learn of changes in standards that effect national cancer data collection. Cancer Registrars will receive guidance on the latest technological changes in cancer diagnosis and treatment and the correct, consistent manner to record this data. Topics to be discussed include Multiple Primary &Histology Coding, Collaborative Staging, New Coding Rules, Changes in Coding Rules, FORDS and Informatics. Cancer Registrars will also improve their management and administrative skills, knowledge of medical sciences, database management, and data retrieval and analysis. The conference will also provide opportunities for central Registrars and hospital Registrars to network on ways to improve the accuracy and timeliness of cancer data. Without the NCRA Conference, Cancer Registrars would not have access to state of the art data collection techniques and methods. As a result, the ultimate quality of cancer data would not be as high. This would impact the usefulness of information collected and published by the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program and the quality of research conducted on that data. NCRA is the only national professional society exclusively representing the individuals who identify, abstract, classify and code cases of cancer that occur throughout the United States. NCRA also administers the Certified Tumor Registrars (CTR) credential.
Cancer data forms much of the body of knowledge used by medical professionals, epidemiologists, policymakers, and public health officials for the purpose of cancer control. As the largest gathering of Cancer Registrars in the world, the Annual Educational Conference of the National Cancer Registrars Association helps ensure the ultimate accuracy of cancer data and usefulness in impacting cancer control and setting public health policies. The meeting also provides a key forum for announcements by standard-setting organizations, including NCI?s SEER Program, about changes in protocols or updates to national standards.
