The Alberta Cancer Registry (ACR) holds the legal mandate to record and maintain data on all new cancer diagnoses and cancer deaths in the province. Since the ACR was established in 1942, over one million cancer cases have been registered.
Cancer registrars have highly specialized training to collect and interpret detailed cancer data following national and international coding standards to ensuring high quality and comparable data. Critical data from the ACR is used to support cancer surveillance, research, and planning cancer care programs. By recording individual cancer cases and cancer-related deaths over several decades, the ACR also provides data that supports the comparison of cancer rates in Alberta with those across Canada, and in other countries.
The ACR is certified by the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR). Based on the completeness of data, timely reporting, and other data quality measures, the ACR has maintained the highest Gold Certification status since 2005 – the only registry in Canada to have done so.
More about how registry data is collected and used can be found in the Alberta Cancer Registry Infographic.
Visit Cancer Surveillance & Reporting for more information on cancer statistics within Alberta.