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National Quality Forum Endorses Consensus Standards for Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast & Colorectal Cancer

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 March 2007, 18:00 CDT

WASHINGTON, March 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Quality Forum (NQF) today announced endorsement of national voluntary consensus standards related to the diagnosis and treatment of breast and colorectal cancer.

In 2005, 248,000 Americans were diagnosed with breast and colorectal cancer. Despite many advances, deficiencies in the quality of cancer care still exist. NQF seeks to drive improvement in care for patients with cancer by endorsing six voluntary consensus standards for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment and four voluntary consensus standards for colorectal cancer diagnosis and treatment. These standards are intended for accountability, internal quality improvement only, and/or surveillance. Also endorsed are two recommendations related to development and six areas that urgently need research.

The endorsed measures are: Breast Cancer -- Post-breast conserving surgery irradiation -- accountability, quality improvement only (QI-only), surveillance -- Adjuvant chemotherapy -- accountability, QI-only, surveillance -- Adjuvant hormonal therapy -- accountability, QI-only, surveillance -- Needle biopsy diagnosis -- QI-only, surveillance -- Patients with early stage breast cancer who have evaluation of the axilla -- QI-only, surveillance -- College of American Pathologists Breast Cancer Protocol -- accountability, QI-only, surveillance Colorectal Cancer -- Adjuvant chemotherapy -- accountability, QI-only, surveillance -- Completeness of pathology reporting -- accountability, QI-only, surveillance -- College of American Pathologists Colon and Rectum Protocol -- accountability, QI-only, surveillance -- Surgical resection includes at least 12 nodes -- surveillance

Detailed specifications and information on the framework and research recommendations may be found at http://www.qualityforum.org/.

NQF is a voluntary consensus standard-setting organization. Any party may request reconsideration of the recommendations, in whole or part, by notifying NQF in writing no later than 6:00 p.m. EDT, April 11, 2007 (601 13th Street, NW, Suite 500 North, Washington, DC, 20005; fax 202.783.3434). For an appeal to be considered, the notification letter must include information clearly demonstrating that the appellant has interests that are directly and materially affected by the NQF-endorsed(TM) recommendations and that the NQF decision has had (or will have) an adverse effect on those interests.

This project was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Cancer Institute, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The mission of the National Quality Forum is to improve the quality of American healthcare by setting national priorities and goals for performance improvement, endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance, and promoting the attainment of national goals through education and outreach programs. NQF, a non-profit organization (qualityforum.org) with diverse stakeholders across the public and private health sectors, was established in 1999 and is based in Washington, DC.

The National Quality Forum

CONTACT: Jerry Mullins, +1-202-974-8305, for The National Quality Forum

Web site: http://www.qualityforum.org/

Source: PRNewswire-USNewswire

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