HAWAI ‘ I TUMOR REGISTRY : COLLECTING ESSENTIAL DATA
ABOVE : GLASS SLIDES WITH TUMOR TISSUE SECTIONS STAINED WITH HEMATOXYLIN AND EOSIN . LEFT : THE HAWAI ‘ I TUMOR REGISTRY TEAM
As early as 1939 , cancer was the leading cause of death in Hawai ‘ i . However , it was not until 1960 that the Hawai ‘ i Tumor Registry ( HTR ) was established by the Hawai ‘ i Medical Association , Hawai ‘ i State Department of Health , and the Hawai ‘ i Pacific Division of the American Cancer Society . One of the earliest statewide cancer registries , HTR is responsible for cancer surveillance in the state .
The HTR has been operated by the University of Hawai ‘ i Cancer Center since 1973 , the year it became a funded registry of the National Cancer Institute ( NCI ) Surveillance , Epidemiology , and End Results ( SEER ) Program . The HTR is one of only 20 NCI SEER registries nationwide and collects confidential data on each cancer diagnosis made in Hawai ‘ i , as well as treatments patients receive , and outcomes .
HTR cancer data are used to generate cancer incidence and mortality rates in order to track cancer trends in Hawai ‘ i and nationally , essential for research at the Cancer Center and public health activities . Because of Hawai ‘ i ’ s unique multiethnic population , the HTR has played a key role in understanding how cancer affects different racial and ethnic minorities .
HTR ’ s major achievements in the Cancer Center ’ s past 50 years include :
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Being selected as a founding member of the NCI ’ s SEER program ;
Consistent recognition as one of the top-performing central cancer registries in the U . S . and Canada , with GOLD standard awards from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries ;
Being an integral component of groundbreaking research on ethnic disparities in cancer , including the Multiethnic Cohort Study and numerous other studies of cancer causes , development , and outcomes ; and
Establishment of a population-based tissue bank of clinically-analyzed and explained archival tumors which has contributed to multiple translational cancer studies .
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