The Nirmiti application: An innovative tool for extending CanReg5 analyses to cancer mortality and paediatric cancer

TL;DR

Nirmiti is a new web tool that helps cancer registries in South and Southeast Asia generate accurate pediatric and mortality cancer data.

Contribution

Nirmiti is a novel web application that extends CanReg5's capabilities to generate pediatric and mortality cancer rates.

Findings

Nirmiti successfully generates childhood cancer rates for age groups 0–14 and 0–19.

The application reduces manual errors and supports standardized reporting for PBCRs in India, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan.

Nirmiti is freely available and compatible with data from CanReg5 and other software.

Abstract

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Regional Hub in Mumbai provides technical support to population‐based cancer registries (PBCRs) in South and South‐East Asian (SSEA) countries. For data management and incidence rate table generation, the Hub recommends CanReg5, an open‐source registry software developed by IARC, to all PBCRs seeking support from it. However, CanReg5 is limited in generating mortality and paediatric cancer incidence tables. Several SSEA cancer registries requested the Hub to develop practical solutions to facilitate the generation of cancer rates statistics. The IARC Regional Hub, in Mumbai, subsequently developed Nirmiti, an innovative web application which is capable of generating incidence, mortality, and paediatric cancer rates based on provided input data. The application accepts registry data in a specific format and generates required tables according to the selected options; users can input data from CanReg5 or other software into Nirmiti for processing. Nirmiti generates childhood cancer rates for age‐groups 0–14 and 0–19, based on the 12 main groups and 47 subgroups of the International Incidence of Childhood Cancer, Volume 3, and is freely available to cancer registries upon request. The application has been successfully utilized by PBCRs in India, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan.

What's new?

CanReg5, developed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), is an important open‐access tool for the collection, quality assurance, and analysis of population‐based cancer registry (PBCR) data. The tool has limitations, however. The present report describes a new online application, Nirmiti, built by the IARC Regional Hub in Mumbai as a user‐friendly platform designed for improved dissemination of pediatric and mortality data. Nirmiti was effective particularly in eliminating manual errors and supporting the inclusion of childhood cancer incidence and mortality data. PBCRs in Bhutan, India, and Sri Lanka are now using the application for data management and reporting.

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