Last Update: 25/02/2013 12:36
The National Breast Cancer Audit is directed by the Breast Surgeons of Australia and New
Zealand Inc. (BreastSurgANZ). All Full members of this society are required to
participate in the audit.
Background
Access the NBCA
Online Portal
Frequently Asked
Questions
Research projects and
collaboration
Publications
Research
summaries
Downloads
Contact
Background
Who we are
The National Breast Cancer Audit (NBCA) is a clinical
audit developed with the aim of improving quality of care by
surgeons for patients with early breast cancer in Australia and New
Zealand. It was originally initiated as a pilot study in 1998 and
has been running continuously now for over 10 years.
The database currently contains over 120,000 episodes of breast
cancer, with over 250 surgeons contributing data each year from
across Australian and New Zealand. A list of contributing members is available from BreastSurgANZ.
The NBCA provides surgeons with a self-audit tool to monitor
their own surgical practice in relation to evidence based
standards, as well as participating in a quality improvement cycle.
The data is also used in a de-identified and aggregated form for
research into breast cancer treatment in Australia and New Zealand.
More information about this research can be found on our publications
page.
Participating in the audit
The audit is provided free of charge to members of BreastSurgANZ. Non-member access to the NBCA
Online Portal is also available for a fee; however, non-members are
not considered participants of the NBCA.
The NBCA Online Portal is a secure
web-based system for:
- entering and storing patient data
- accessing summaries of individual breast cancer cases
- assessing practice against key performance indicators
- benchmarking against peers
- exporting personal cases to Microsoft Excel for further
analyses
Other benefits of participating in the NBCA include:
Governance and structure
As of late 2010, the audit has been directed and funded by the
Breast Surgeons of Australia and New Zealand (BreastSurgANZ), a specialty society for
surgeons treating breast cancer. Management of the audit continues
to be provided through the Australian Safety and Efficacy
Register of New Interventional Procedures - Surgical (ASERNIP-S) in the
Research, Audit and Academic Surgery Division of the College, with
the office located in Adelaide, South Australia.
The audit has also been declared a Quality Assurance Activity under the
Commonwealth Health Insurance (Quality Assurance Confidentiality)
Amendment Act 1992 in Australia and has been declared a protected quality assurance activity under the
Health Practitioner's Competence Assurance Act 2003 in New Zealand.
The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that information that
becomes available as a result of the activity can not be disclosed,
other than for general reporting purposes (i.e. annual reports,
research papers).
Research
projects and collaborations
The NBCA dataset offers significant research opportunities.
Articles are frequently published by the NBCA team in peer reviewed
journals, details of which can be found on our publications
page. Consumer friendly summaries of this research is available on
our research
summaries page.
The NBCA also collaborates with national agencies on research
into breast cancer treatment, with the most recent summarised
below.
Researchers can apply for access to de-identified data or
tabulations through the NBCA Data
Request process. Our Data Request Subcommittee will consider
any request.
Factors that influence survival
The audit collaborated with Cancer
Australia over several years to conduct research into factors
that influence survival from breast cancer.
2010
With funding from the National Breast Cancer Foundation, NBCA data on
Australian patients was successfully linked with the National Death Index. Subsequent research
examined the effects of age, surgeon caseload, treatment centre
location and health insurance status. A peer-reviewed article
on the successful linkage has been published in the ANZ Journal of
Surgery in November 2010. Two peer-reviewed articles on the
research findings are currently in press, awaiting publication.
2011
The project continued with further funding from the National Breast
Cancer Foundation. New Zealand data was included in the
analyses for the first time, by linking with the New Zealand Cancer Registry data and Mortality data through the generous support of
the Cancer
Society of New Zealand . Research focused on the
effects of bilateral synchronous cancer and declining
treatment. Two peer-reviewed articles are currently being
finalised.
2012
The proposed work for 2012 will involve further collaboration with
Cancer Australia on several research topics that examine factors
affecting survival from breast cancer. As the NBCA has
continued to collect data on breast cancer treatment since the
previous linkage, it is also proposed that a new linkage with the
NDI create a more up-to-date dataset for analysis. Topics that may
be explored include mastectomy rates, cancer management by region,
adherence to guidelines, immediate breast reconstruction and
post-mastectomy radiotherapy, among other possibilities.
BreastScreen Aotearoa
The NBCA produced reports on New Zealand breast cancer treatment
for cases diagnosed in 2008, 2009 and 2010. These reports were
funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Health, through BreastScreen Aotearoa, and examined tumour
characteristics and treatment of patients referred from
BreastScreen Aotearoa compared with referrals via other means.
Downloads
Data
collection forms
The forms below are provided as a resource for collecting data
prior to input into the NBCA Online Portal.
The full dataset form includes all fields collected by the NBCA,
both mandatory and optional, thus allowing the full research and
record keeping potential of the audit to be utilised.
Full Dataset Form
(PDF 90 KB, January 2011)
Follow Up Only
Form (PDF 44 KB, January 2011)
Minimum dataset (MDS) forms provide a shorter alternative to the
full dataset while including all data items necessary for threshold
calculations on key performance indicators.
Invasive Cases MDS Form (PDF 47 KB, January
2011)
Ductal Carcinoma In
Situ Cases MDS Form (PDF 42 KB, January 2011)
Patient information
All patients to be entered into the audit need to receive the
following information sheet.
Patient information
and opt-out consent (PDF 211 KB, March 2011)
Useful documents to aid data entry
Online Data Entry
Manual (PDF 776 KB, December 2011)
Data Dictionary (PDF
533 KB, April 2012)
Instructions
for updating incomplete episodes (PDF 37 KB, June 2010)
Data release
Data Release Policy (Word 53 KB, 2006)
Data Release
Request Form (PDF 266 KB, August 2011)
Reports
Reports on NBCA progress
An excerpt from the
ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2012 (PDF 236 KB)
An excerpt from the
ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2011 (PDF 220 KB)
An excerpt from the
ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2010 (PDF 116 KB)
An excerpt from the
ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2009 (PDF 233 KB)
An excerpt from the
ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2008 (PDF 166 KB)
National
Breast Cancer Audit Progress Report -March 2006 (PDF 595
KB)
National
Breast Cancer Audit progress report - May 2005 (PDF 547
KB)
Process for managing outliers in breast cancer surgery - March
2005 (PDF 233 KB)
Reports using NBCA data
National Breast Cancer Audit Public Health Monitoring Report
2008 (PDF 895 KB)
National Breast Cancer Audit Public Health Monitoring Report
2007 (PDF 351 KB)
National Breast Cancer Audit Public Health Monitoring Report
2006 (PDF 538 KB)
Report on
threshold levels for 2006 data (requires log-in)
Newsletter
BreastSurgANZ Newsletter
December 2012 (PDF 2.11 MB)
Volume 6
Issue 2 - December 2011 (PDF 164 KB)
Volume 6
Issue 1 - May 2011 (PDF 80 KB)
Volume 5
Issue 1 - December 2010 (PDF 80 KB)
Contact
The National Breast Cancer Audit is managed by the Morbidity
Audits Department of the Research, Audit and Academic Surgery
Division of the College.
For further information or assistance, contact the helpdesk:
National Breast Cancer Audit
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
199 Ward Street
North Adelaide SA 5006 Australia
Telephone: +61 8 8219 0918
Fax: +61 8 8219 0999
Email: breast.audit@surgeons.org.