Enhanced identification of out-of-state cases by utilizing "text - place of diagnosis"

One of the primary functions of a state cancer registry is to determine statewide cancer rates. These can be slightly inflated when patients from other states or countries are erroneously counted in the total. Some of these patients can be identified by inspecting the ‘TEXT – PLACE OF DIAGNOSIS’ field in the submitted records. We flagged cases for review by looking for names and distinctive abbreviations of other states, major cities, and countries appearing in this field. 76% of the cases reviewed were determined to reside outside of the state, enough to reduce overall crude rates for 2012 by about 0.4%. The labor-intensive nature of this process means that it might not be practical for registries to review all of their historical data in this manner, but it might be possible for them to keep pace going forward.