City project

Plan Cancer Registry II

Strengthening Data Quality and Completeness of the Tbilisi Cancer Registry

City

Tbilisi, Georgia

Project lead

Maia Kereselidze

Areas of action

Health information systems

The challenge

Cancer registries are critical for public health surveillance, health planning, policy development, and improving the quality of cancer care.
While Georgia’s population-based cancer registry (PBCR), established in 2015, has significantly strengthened cancer data collection, several challenges persist as the system continues to grow.
Key issues include suboptimal data completeness, inconsistencies in disease-staging information, and limitations in the use of mortality data.
Findings from the C/Can Tbilisi Needs Assessment highlighted data quality and completeness as a major cross-cutting challenge affecting cancer planning, evaluation, and decision-making.

The goal

To improve the quality, completeness, and coverage of cancer data in the Tbilisi Cancer Registry to support effective cancer surveillance, planning, evaluation, and resource allocation.

The How

Support the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) in strengthening data quality within the Tbilisi Cancer Registry.
Address gaps in staging data and improve data completeness through the integration and use of mortality data.
Disseminate the Cancer Registry Operations Manual previously developed and endorsed by the Ministry of Health.
Train key stakeholders and institutions contributing data to the cancer registry.
Map institutions feeding into the registry to assess IT infrastructure, data variables, and reporting processes.
Leverage technical support from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) through assessments, site visits, and ongoing expert supervision.

Outputs

Assessment of quality of cancer registration processes, identifying gaps and producing the appropriate recommendations.
Data assessment on cancer related vital statistics.
Assessment of IT software and hardware infrastructure, cancer data points and variables for facilities contributing to the cancer registry.
Updating of the cancer registration process.
Dissemination of Cancer Registration processes changes.
Publication of the “Improvement of the Cancer Registry data quality for better cancer management decision making” Project Report.

Team

Project Lead

Maia Kereselidze, Head of the Department of Medical Statistics, National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health of Georgia (NCDC).

Project Team

Konstantin Kazanjan, National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health of Georgia (NCDC)
Nino Chkhaberidze, National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health of Georgia (NCDC)
Iakli Lomidze, IT consultant

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