Baptist Cancer Program - Baptist Memorial Health Care

Brain Tumors: A Look at Tumor Registry Data
Jason Weaver, MD
Neurological Surgery, Spine Oncology & Reconstructive Spine Surgery
Introduction:
The Cancer Committee has an interest in looking at Tumor Registry data collected for specific cancer sites. During
2010, the Committee requested an in depth look at brain tumor data.
Method:
Brain tumors are classified as primary or secondary (metastatic) tumors. This analysis focuses on primary brain
tumors. To-date, the Tumor Registry data collection does not focus or collect detail information on secondary
tumors of the brain. Both benign and malignant tumors are included in this analysis.
Due to the small number of primary brain tumors, data from years 2005 through 2010 were reviewed.
Data comparison was made with data from the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB). Both national and state data was
gleaned from the NCDB for years 2000 through 2009.
Findings:
In the graph below, we see that there has been a fluctuation in the number of primary brain tumor seen at Baptist
between 2005 and 2010. The number of brain tumors seen at Baptist peaked in 2005 then saw a steady decrease
until 2008. In 2009 and 2010 we see a renewed rise in the numbers of cases seen.
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