BCCOM Audit
The Breast Cancer Clinical Outcome Measures (BCCOM) Project
The annual ABS breast screening
audit demonstrated variations in the management of screen-detected
breast cancer across the UK. Since its inception in 1997, the audit
has brought about major improvements in clinical practice. However,
over 70% of all new breast cancer cases are initially detected
symptomatically and the majority of these cases are not
incorporated into a national audit due to the lack of reliable,
accurate data. "BCCOM will extend the audit process to cover
symptomatic breast cancers"
AIMS of BCCOM
- To audit across the UK the treatment of symptomatic breast
cancer
- To compare management with published national standards and
targets
- To measure against treatment' hypotheses/gold standards
- To inform the setting of future standards
- To obtain complete and accurate outcome measures including
survival
HOW are BCCOM aims achieved?
- By setting up routine methods to conduct a retrospective audit
of the treatment of primary symptomatic (female and male) breast
cancer in the UK. This involves tapping into existing data sources
such as the data currently collected by cancer registries and
individual clinicians, or Hospital Episodes Statistics
(HES).
- By establishing a complete and accurate dataset of
symptomatically detected breast cancers and their
management.
- By using the data collected to generate clinical outcome
measures for individual breast services in order to compare current
practice with the recommended guidelines.
The BCCOM project is funded by a 3-year grant from Breakthrough
Breast Cancer.
For further information, please contact
catherine.lagord@wmciu.nhs.uk
Click here to download
PDF version of BCCOM Annual report
Visit the
BCCOM webpage