Monitoring Case Survival by Histological Type for Lung Cancer, Breast Cancer and Non‐hodgkin's Lymphomas — One Function of a Population‐based Registry

Summary Population‐based registries are a means of monitoring cancer case survival, treatment outcomes, and time trends at the community level and for individual clinicians. Such registries are less likely to face the selection bias, small numbers of cases, and loss to follow‐up that commonly apply in hospital records. Two‐year survival rates have been calculated by histological type for lung cancers, female breast cancers, and non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas. For lung cancers, squamous cell tumours and adenocarcinomas presented better survival rates than undifferentiated large cell and small cell tumours. Nodular non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas had more favourable rates than the diffuse variety and, among the diffuse tumours, lymphocytic cases had a better prognosis than the histiocytic types. Breast cancer survival was not clearly influenced by histological type.