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Background: Melanoma in African Americans is rare, and the diagnosis is often delayed, leading to advanced presentation and poor prognosis., Objective: The purpose of this retrospective study is to determine whether African American patients diagnosed with melanoma at the Washington Hospital Center were initially seen with more advanced disease than white patients., Methods: A retrospective chart review was performed on 36 African American patients who were diagnosed and/or treated for melanoma at the Washington Hospital Center between 1981 and 2000. Data obtained included patient age at presentation, sex, Breslow's depth and histologic subtype, stage at presentation, and tumor location. These data were compared with information obtained from white patients with melanoma during this period., Results: A total of 649 African American and white patients were treated for melanoma at the Washington Hospital Center between 1981 and 2000. Of these, 36 (6.1%) patients were African American. African American patients were more likely to initially be seen with stage III/IV disease (32.1%) compared with (12.7%) the white patients initially seen with these disease stages. Of the white patients 60.4% were initially seen with melanoma in situ/stage I disease compared with 39.3% of the African American patients. The 5-year survival rate was 58.8% in African Americans compared with 84.8% in whites., Conclusions: In our series, African Americans are more likely than whites to be initially seen with advanced disease and have a subsequent worse prognosis. Physician training and patient education campaigns are crucial to improving the poor prognosis associated with melanoma in the African American community.

Health care institutions need complete and accurate data to plan, monitor, and evaluate their oncology programs. Although financial and discharge data are available, clinical repositories generally are not. For oncology, the cancer registry database serves as a clinical repository. The data in the registry are complete, accurate, and readily available. They can be used to plan new services, evaluate existing programs, and monitor patient care.

Cancer registries are sources of epidemiological, patterns-of-care, and outcome data for local, regional, state, and national studies of patients with cancer. Since 1976, these registries have formed a voluntary network of contributors to annual patient care studies under the aegis of the National Cancer Data Committee of the Commission on Cancer. These annual studies provide timely clinical information that is widely disseminated to physicians, allied health personnel, administrators, health care planners, and public and private agencies. The use of the data has grown exponentially and has been the basis for more than 90 publications. Merging this activity with the National Cancer Data Base has further expanded the demand and use of registry data. This study was undertaken to respond to inquiries as to the validity of the data and the qualifications and competency of cancer registrars. It provides the baseline for cancer registry data quality and serves as a quality management tool to identify opportunities to enhance data quality.