June 11, 2009 – If it weren't for Colin O'Connell's work, we might not have data that indicates that the Virgin Islands number-three cancer differs from that for the general U.S. population.
O'Connell, the tumor registrar at the Schneider Regional Medical Center's Charlotte Kimelman Cancer Institute, is in charge of maintaining what may be the territory's only cancer database.
While the Senate will hear about the status of cancer data collection at the territorial level, SMRC's cancer registry has been gathering data on cancer patients since 2006.
The Senate's Committee on Health is scheduled to hear testimony Thursday on "data collection and recording of a Central Cancer Registry and the reimplementation of such a program."
SMRC's database is still too young to extrapolate trends.
"We can infer what the most common sites (anatomical location) are," O'Connell said. "But we can't say whether cancer is on the increase or decrease."
However, data collected indicates that the top three cancers diagnosed were prostate, breast and colorectal cancer. Lung cancer ranks seventh, according to O'Connell, who said that the in the general U.S. population it ranks third.
In other states, cancer databases or registries track the incidence of cancers on a variety of aspects including geography, type of cancer, family incidence and response to treatment and survival curves on a state, regional and sometimes cultural background basis.
Data collected can be used to track whether there are higher incidences of cancer in certain geographical areas, leading to detection of the source of the cancer.
Since 1999 Virgin Islands code mandates the establishment of a "territory-wide cancer registry system for the collection and recording of information determining the incidence of cancer and related data, including cancer mortality rates." The legislation tasks the V.I. Department of Health with this mandate.
The hospital's database is far from complete for the territory, as only people treated at SMRC facilities are included and since SMRC treats mostly people from St. Thomas and St. John, data for cancer patients on St. Croix is only provided when they come to St. Thomas for treatment.
"We know we are not capturing as much of St. Croix as we should," O'Connell said.
Another data collection problem stems from people seeking treatment off-island.
"We don't know the disease site, the kind of treatment, where they lived or who their family are," O'Connell said.
Of the 165 cancers diagnosed at SMRC in 2006, 34 were prostate cancer, 33 were breast cancer and 22 were colorectal. One anomaly about breast cancer that O'Connell has noticed is that there may be a slightly higher incidence of male breast cancer in the Virgin Islands than in the general U.S. population of those who have breast cancer.
"A comprehensive territorial registry would give us an understanding of how cancer functions neighborhood by neighborhood and family by family," O'Connell said.
The V.I. Department of Health is not collecting the data from SMRC at present, O'Connell said.
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