Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre lung cancer clinical audit: collecting the UK National Lung Cancer Audit data from hospitals in Australia.

INTRODUCTION: Clinical audit may improve practice in cancer service provision. The UK National Lung Cancer Audit (NLCA) collects data for all new cases of thoracic cancers. We aimed to collect similar data for our Victorian patients from six hospitals within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) and associated Western and Central Melbourne Integrated Cancer Service (WCMICS).

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective audit of all newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer and mesothelioma in 2013 across the 6 VCCC/WCMICS hospitals. The objectives were to adapt the NLCA dataset for use in the Australian context, to analyse the findings using descriptive statistics and to determine feasibility of implementing a routine, ongoing audit similar to that in the UK. Individual data items were adapted from the NLCA by an expert steering committee. Data were collated from the Victorian Cancer Registry, Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset and individual hospital databases. Individual medical records were audited for missing data.

RESULTS: 845 patients were diagnosed across the sites in 2013. Most were aged 65-80 (55%), and were male (62%). Most had non-small cell lung cancer (81%) with 9% diagnosed with small cell lung cancer and 2% with mesothelioma. Data completeness varied significantly between fields. For those with higher levels of completeness, headline indicators of clinical care were comparable to NLCA data. The Victorian population seem to lack access to specialist lung cancer nurse services.

CONCLUSION: Lung cancer care at participating hospitals appeared to be comparable to the UK in 2013. In future, prospective data collection should be harmonized across sites and correlated with survival outcomes. One area of concern was a lack of documented access to specialist nursing services. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.