Research presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s 15th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) demonstrated that a national, quality management system can improve clinical results.

In order to improve prognosis and quality of lung cancer care the Danish Lung Cancer Group has developed a strategy consisting of national clinical guidelines and a clinical quality and research database.

In 1998 the first edition of guidelines was published and a registry was opened for registrations in the year 2000.

This abstract describes the methods used and the result obtained through the collaborative work and discusses how to improve the quality of lung cancer care through the development and monitoring of indicators.

Researchers registered all lung cancer patients since the year 2000. More than 40,000 patients have been included in the database. Results are reported periodically and submitted to formal auditing on an annual basis.

The Danish experience shows that a national quality management system including national guidelines, a database with a high degree of data quality, frequent reports, audit and commitment from all stakeholders can contribute to improve clinical practice, improve core results and reduce regional and/or geographic differences.

Source: 15th WCLC