Note. SEER = Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (the National Cancer Institute’s [US] cancer surveillance program), MC = microscopic confirmation, and DC = death certificate.

We focused on the use of so-called "gold standard" cancer registries of known validity for the study of homogeneous disease entities.

We began by surveying the most common forms of cancer, and then moved to study of the most public health-significant forms of cancer: Relatively common, with relatively good prognoses, where timely diagnosis and access to the best available treatments matter (better survival with a high quality of life over much of that extended period of survival).