Putting NCCN's Guidelines Into Practice: It All Depends on Data

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The National Comprehensive Cancer Network presented eight new practice guidelines last month at its annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and announced plans to create 10 more. By this time next year, the NCCN should have guidelines covering 91% of human tumors, said Rodger J. Winn, M.D., who is director of the community oncology program at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, chair of the guidelines steering committee, and a driving force behind the network of 15 major cancer centers.

Despite this rapid progress, the new guidelines had to share a large portion of the meeting's spotlight with NCCN's other crucial concern: data. Implementing practice guidelines requires data- on how each patient in each NCCN institution is diagnosed, treated, and followed; on response, recurrence, and survival rates; and on demographics and functional status. It requires data that can be generated within each cancer center, pooled in a single NCCN outcome database, then analyzed and used for feedback.