Objective: To examine the level of compliance with the NABON-guidelines (i.e. breast cancer consensus recommendations) issued in 1999 with particular regard to the diagnostics and treatment of breast cancer in hospitals in the region covered by the Comprehensive Cancer Centre South (covering the Noord-Brabant and Noord-Limburg areas in the Netherlands).
Design: Retrospective, descriptive.
Method: Using the Cancer Registry, the average number ofbreast cancer patients in 16 general hospital locations in the region covered by the Comprehensive Cancer Centre South was determined. Then, from I July 2003 to 30 June 2004, at each hospital location, all successive patients in whom carcinoma of the breast (invasive or in situ) had been diagnosed were included until one-third of the annual total was reached. Data from the medical-case notes of these patients were collected in order to examine to what extent the hospital locations had complied with the NABON-norms.
Results: A total of 581 breast cancer patients were included. In general the diagnostics and treatment complied with the consensus recommendations in the NABON-policy document. Improvements were mainly indicated in the area of logistics. One hospital met the guideline's recommendation that in 90% of cases, the pathology department should ensure that the results ofa histological needle-biopsy are available within 2 days of the biopsy being carried out. In 62% of patients, surgery was performed within 3 weeks of the necessity of an operation being confirmed, although the target norm was 90%. The interval between the last operation and the start of radiotherapy treatment was 44 instead of the proposed 28 days. Inter-hospital differences in diagnostics were seen mainly in the application of sentinel-node biopsy (34-95%). Furthermore, broad diversity was observed in the percentage of patients treated in the proposed space oftime between pathology result and initial surgery (3-87%) and between the last operation and start ofradiotherapy (0-46%) or chemotherapy (0-100%).