Registration area

Tamil Nadu Cancer Registry Project (TNCRP) is a collaborative study by the Cancer Institute (W.I.A) and the Department of Health and Family Welfare (DoH&FW), Government of Tamil Nadu for statewide cancer surveillance since year 2012. Two government orders viz. [G.O. (Ms.) 132 dated June 17, 2012] and [G.O. (Ms.) 66 dated February 22, 2018] were issued for strengthening TNCRP operations and declaring cancer as a notifiable disease in Tamil Nadu. TNCRP caters to an estimated population of 78 million, the largest covered by a single registry in the world and covers an area of 130,058 km2. The primary objective of TNCRP is to register all NEW CANCER CASES occurring in the resident population of Tamil Nadu state in a systematic and continuous manner.

Cancer diagnosis and treatment are provided by government and private hospitals. The four broad categories of sources of data on new cancer cases for TNCRP are (i) hospital services, (ii) onco-pathological services, (iii) other allied services both in government and non-government sectors and (iv) death certificates in vital statistics division. There are 2,008 sources from where cancer cases have been registered for TNCRP, from the year 2012 till date.

Case-finding is done both by active and passive methods. The TNCRP social investigators visited all the potential sources of data and scrutinized the available medical records or registers for identifying the cancer cases. The data was abstracted using the TNCRP notification form. The registry also received data on new cancer patients by post/email as hard/scanned copies of filled notification forms or electronically as line-list of data items as per the notification form for every new cancer patient from data sources having electronic medical record or computerized patient data. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO SUBMIT CANCER NOTIFICATIONS TO TNCRP THROUGH THIS ONLINE PORTAL. Disease coding was done using ICD-O III edition and ICD-10. Data processing for quality included case-duplication and consistency checks following international norms.

TNCRP has evolved over time by stabilizing its case-finding practices to generate reliable cancer incidence statistics by gender and age-group for every cancer site in each district for cancer control action and policy. Cancer incidence statistics are disseminated by publishing reports. Variable cancer incidence pattern between urban and rural areas is evident and is instrumental for in-depth epidemiological investigations by academic institutions. The TNCRP framework can be utilized for (i) evaluating the ongoing state-level cancer screening and early detection programs and (ii) delivery of home-based services for needy cancer patients.