Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry?
The Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry (GBACR) gathers information on all cancers diagnosed and treated in a nine-county area of northern California. The GBACR collects information from medical records provided by hospitals, doctors, and other care facilities. Information collected by the GBACR is used to better understand cancer occurrence and survival in the Greater Bay Area. For more information about the GBACR and its operations, please visit our Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry webpage.
Which counties are included in the Greater Bay Area?
The Greater Bay Area is a nine-county area, including Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties.
Where can I find cancer rates for the Greater Bay Area and the counties it includes?
The Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry (GBACR) produces annual reports on cancer incidence and mortality rates. The reports are usually published in the spring of each year, and are available by request or can be found on our website under the link, Cancer Data and Statistics for the General Public. To obtain a hard copy of the report, please contact the Data Release Coordinator at data.release@cpic.org or by calling 510-608-5278.
The estimated numbers of new cancer cases and deaths for the current year in California and in each county are provided in the document, California Cancer Facts and Figures, published each year by the American Cancer Society and the California Cancer Registry. This publication is available by request to ACS (1-800-ACS-2345), and is also available on our website under Other Registry Reports and Publications.
The GBACR does not annually produce cancer rates for cities because population data are not available in the age group, gender, and race/ethnicity categories required to calculate rates.
If you need cancer data that you cannot find in published reports (like those listed above), here are two ways to obtain it: 1) through interactive websites that allow you to specify, calculate and display the data you want, or; 2) through a data request to us at the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry (GBACR).
Interactive Cancer Data Websites
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Fast Stats: Interactive tool to access key SEER and US cancer statistics by age, sex, and race
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Why are Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry data almost two years behind?
The Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry collects information from many different sources: hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities throughout the nine-county area. It is very important that the information the registry collects is accurate and complete. It takes time to collect and verify all this information.
Complete information on a cancer case and the first course of treatment may not be available until six months after the initial diagnosis. Many cases are reported to the regional registries by multiple facilities or health care providers, and all the reports must be consolidated into a single record containing the best information available. Another factor is the increasing number of cancer patients who are diagnosed and treated in doctors' offices without ever being admitted to a hospital; more effort is required to find these cases. In addition, the strict quality control procedures needed to produce complete and accurate data are labor intensive. The vast majority of cases are reported to the GBACR within 12 months of the diagnosis date, but the data cannot be published until case reporting is estimated to be at least 95 percent complete--and the last 10 percent are the hardest to complete.
Can you delete my name and personal information from the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry?
The state law requiring that all cancers diagnosed in California be reported does not permit deletion of cancer patient information from the registry. To fulfill its purpose of providing information to find the causes and cures for cancer, it is vital for the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry data to be complete.
The law mandates that registry data be used solely for research into the causes and cures for cancer and that patient identity be kept confidential, but also that confidential information may be released for such research. However, patients can refuse to participate in any particular research study, or all research studies.
Patients who do not wish to be contacted for any research study can request to have their registry record flagged so that the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry will not release their names to researchers. However, they may still be contacted by researchers who obtained their name directly from a hospital or facility where they were treated.
For more information on cancer reporting in California, please visit the California Cancer Registry's Cancer Reporting website.
What data are available from the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry for research use?
Several types of data are available from the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry. Registry data are given out in two forms: (1) statistical (grouped) data and (2) individual data.
Reports containing tabulated data on cancer incidence and mortality from 1988 through the most recent year for which data are complete can be requested and are free of charge. The reports are usually published in the spring of each year, and can be found on our website under the link, Cancer Data and Statistics for the General Public. To obtain a hard copy of the latest report, please contact the Data Release Coordinator at data.release@cpic.org or call 510-608-5278. Customized statistical data from the registry may also be requested.
Individual patient data may be used to study cancer causes, prevention, care and treatment. These data are provided only to researchers with projects that meet stringent requirements for scientific merit and handling of confidential information. To learn more about these requirements, please visit our Cancer Data for Researchers page.
How complete are Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry data?
State law requires that every cancer diagnosis made in California from 1988 onward be reported. The exceptions are the common skin cancers (basal and squamous cell carcinomas) and certain non-invasive cancerous conditions of the uterine cervix. The Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry, as well as the cancer registrars and others who collect cancer data for the GBACR, all make a major effort to ensure that the data are as accurate and complete as possible. The level of completeness increases with time, and statistical summaries of the data from a given year are not released until the data are estimated to be at least 95% complete.
What is the GBACR's role in cancer cluster investigations?
As a state-mandated regional cancer registry, one of the responsibilities of the GBACR is to respond to requests from the public for cancer data about the Greater Bay Area. One of the most common type of requests stems from a concern that environmental hazards may be causing excess cancer in a community (sometimes called a "community cancer concern" or a "cancer cluster").
A cancer cluster can be defined in many ways. It can involve groups of persons with cancer who have any of a number of characteristics in common: age, gender, behavior, occupation, family members, time frame, location, type of cancer, etc. However, it has generally come to mean an unexplained excess of people with cancer diagnosed close together in time and geographic area.
The Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry (GBACR) plays a significant role in cancer cluster investigations. CPIC responds to these concerns through a combination of education, information, and statistical analysis.
For more information about cancer concerns please download our document Cancer Cluster Investigation in the Greater Bay Area and visit the California Cancer Registry's Frequently Asked Questions about Neighborhood Cancer Concerns webpage. If you still have questions or concerns after reading the newsletter, please contact the Data Release Coordinator at data.release@cpic.org, or call 510-608-5278.
**These FAQs have been adapted and modified from those published on the California Cancer Registry's Questions page.
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