Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. 23 November 2021. Ministries of Health and other organisations rely on data collected by population-based cancer registries, where they exist. In many parts of the world, cancer registries provide the only source of information on the size, nature, and progression of the local cancer problem. Information generated from population-based cancer registries enables the best possible use of resources to prevent and control cancer as well as the identification of areas in need of research.
Over the period November 16-18, 2021, the IARC Caribbean Cancer Registry Hub at CARPHA, together with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the Martinique Cancer Registry and the Health Unit of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) hosted the Caribbean Course on Cancer Registration: Basic Principles and Methods.
The Caribbean Hub is based at CARPHA’s Headquarters in Trinidad and supports strengthening of cancer registration in all independent countries and territories located within the Caribbean basin. The Caribbean Hub seeks to improve the availability of high-quality cancer data to guide decision-making for improved patient care and treatment and prevention of cancer in the Caribbean region.
CARPHA Executive Director, Dr. Joy St. John stated “CARPHA is committed to providing leadership through advocacy and technical support to our Member States to develop surveillance systems that provide high-quality data for policy development and planning. CARPHA will support continued learning by transforming the contents of the training into communication tools and eLearning products.”
The event focused on the fundamentals of planning and developing population-based cancer registries and sought to highlight the principles of population-based cancer registration and the primary uses of cancer registry data; and explain how cancer registry data are used in descriptive epidemiology.
During the 3-day course, over 30 representatives from the OECS Member States benefited from training that will allow them to apply methods of case-finding, data abstraction, coding, classification, and quality control; and identify the key sources of information for a cancer registry. An overview of the IARC-developed cancer registry software application, CanReg5, was also completed.
The facilitators of the course were from IARC, CARPHA, the Martinique Cancer Registry, the Guadeloupe Cancer Registry and Regional Trainers trained through IARC’s Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (GICR).