What and Where for Publications by Cancer Registries in the Asian Pacific ?-Roles for the APJCP in the Future

The implications of cancer registry data for national cancer control programs was eloquently stressed by the late Yasmin Bhurgri in 2004. With increase in the prevalence of cancer in all of the countries of Asia her arguments have become even more compelling. The registry, whether population-based, hospital-based or pathology-based has many roles to play, particularly as a research base to provide the evidence required by governments to plan and implement their cancer control programs. It is pertinent here to mention that the Japanese government has chosen the Hospital-based route for exansion of registry coverage and provide a nationwide infrastructure to support evidence-based cancer care and cancer control policy (Higashi et al., 2013). The aim of the present commentary, based on the papers cited in the review of cancer registration research publications in 2008-2013, included in the present issue of the APJCP (Moore et al., 2013), is to look at what types of research are attracting most attention and where the publications are to be found. One emphasis is the degree to which scientists avail themselves of open access journals. Another is to provide some insights into which areas might deserve particular attention in the future.


Introduction
The implications of cancer registry data for national cancer control programs was eloquently stressed by the late Yasmin Bhurgri in 2004.With increase in the prevalence of cancer in all of the countries of Asia her arguments have become even more compelling.The registry, whether population-based, hospital-based or pathology-based has many roles to play, particularly as a research base to provide the evidence required by governments to plan and implement their cancer control programs.It is pertinent here to mention that the Japanese government has chosen the Hospital-based route for exansion of registry coverage and provide a nationwide infrastructure to support evidence-based cancer care and cancer control policy (Higashi et al., 2013).
The aim of the present commentary, based on the papers cited in the review of cancer registration research publications in 2008-2013, included in the present issue of the APJCP (Moore et al., 2013), is to look at what types of research are attracting most attention and where the publications are to be found.One emphasis is the degree to which scientists avail themselves of open access journals.Another is to provide some insights into which areas might deserve particular attention in the future.countries, these being especially important for Iran, India, China, Korea and Japan and Australasia.
The overall results are summarized in Table 1.The APJCP accounted for 38% overall but almost or more than 50% in four of the countries areas.Second to the APJCP with 121 was IARC Sci Publ with 20, Cancer Epidemiology with 14, Jpn J Clin Oncol with 9.All others with five or more were country specific.The country journals, except in the case of Australasia, tend to offer free pdf access.Considering only those non-APJCP papers, the International sources only selected journals which provided such access in 35% of cases and with Australia and New Zealand it was only 24%.This reflects the choice of so-called 'high impact' journals with obvious implications for government policy.In this context the policy of NIH in requiring papers funded by public funds to be open access is of obvious interest.

Research Areas Covered
As shown in Table 2, the emphasis of research does differ somewhat across regions but overall some 17% of papers covered incidence data for all or major cancers, and 14% mortality or survival generally, while 39% concerned incidence of cancers at specific sties and 18% mortality or survival.Only 9% were concerned with methodology or quality of data, while research aimed at assessing the roles of cancer registries in effective cancer control programs accounted for a very low 4%.As succinctly expressed by the late Yasmin Bhurgri (2004), the cancer registry is the core element in any cancer control program and these are areas clearly requiring more emphasis in the future if the cancer registry is to reach its full potential, not only as a source of information but also a regional powerhouse for research and interaction with local communities (Moore et al., 2010) (see Figure 1).
It is encouraging, however, that some 17% of published papers concentrated attention on use of cancer registry data to assess risk factors and the influence of ethnicity and socioeconomic or geographical location.It is of paramount importance that data are generated for Asian populations to ensure that conclusions drawn from research in the Western world are appropriate where the lifestyle factors may be fundamentally different (Moore and Sobue, 2010).

Conclusion
The need for an Asian Cancer Registry Network has been been stressed repeatedly (Moore et al., 2008;Shin et al., 2010).At the 22nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Association of Cancer Registries, held in Khon Kaen, Thailand in 2000, a poster session was dedicated to a review of the current situation with respect to cancer registration on the Asian continent.All of the contributors were asked to prepare also an "extended abstract" which would include a rather structured account of cancer registration activities in the country, subsequently published as an APJCP Supplement (Parkin and Vatanasapt, 2001).Thus, the 18 countries which participated were each asked to outline: A summary of their history of cancer registration The present status of registration (with map, if regional coverage) and the size of population covered Any national policy for registration with cancer registry associations, if any Incidence data: a summary of the national profile and of regional variations Studies of survival, epidemiology, prevention, screening and medical care Significant publications: Included were reports from Jordan (Qasem, 2001), Oman (al-Lawati et al., 2001), Saudi Arabia (Al Hamdan et al., 2001), Iran (Mosavi-Jarrahi et al., 2001), Pakistan (Bhurgri, 2001), India (Gajalakshmi et al., 2001), Thailand (Deerasamee et al., 2001), Viet Nam (Anh, 2001), Malaysia (Rosemawati and Sallehudin, 2001), the Philippines (Esteban et al., 2001), China (Wang, 2001), Hong Kong (Foo et al., 2001), Taiwan (You et al., 2001), Mongolia (Munkhtaivan et al., 2001), Korea (Ahn, 2001) and Japan (Oshima et al., 2001).It is time to repeat this endeavour with an even more comprehensive coverage of the state of cancer registration in as many of the countries of the Asian Pacific as possible.The International Agency for Research on Cancer provides high quality data on a regular basis in its Cancer Incidence in Five Continents publications (Muir et al., 1987;Parkin et al., 1992;1997;2002;Curado et al., 2007), GLOBOCAN (Ferlay et al.,2004;2008) and other international efforts (Soerjomataram et al., 2012;Bray et al., 2013), but countries without well established population-based registries are not always included and imprtant variation within countries cannot be documented.
This year the International Association of Cancer Registries meeting is in Buenos Aires, in Argentina following last year in Ireland, both locations very distant from Asia and expensive to reach.This precludes attendance by the majority of scientists active in cancer registration in our region of the world.It is therefore proposed that an Asian Cancer Registry Forum be held in Bangkok in February of 2014 to allow discussion of cooperation for the future.At the same time it is proposed to use the experience of the APJCP in publishing supplements (see Table 3) to produce 'Cancer Registration in the Asian-Pacific in the Year 2014: Present State and Future Cooperation'.The present Commentary is part of an appeal to cancer registry personnel and involved scientists across the region to take part in a collaborative effort, with involvement of the IARC, the Thai National Cancer Institute, and the APOCP/APJCP .It is to be hoped that we can coordinate our efforts with the UICC-Asian Regional Office (Akaza, 2013), long a supporter of the APJCP and a continued sponsor, as well as other regional and supra-regional players (Moore et al., 2010).
As Chief Editor of the APJCP I look forward to publishing many more papers using cancer registry data within our journal in the future and seeing many of the responsible individuals in Bangkok next year.

Table 1 . Country Comparisons of Journal Usage and Percentage Free pdf File Access
:http://dx.doi.org/10.7314/APJCP.2013.14.8.4939  Cancer Registration Research in the Asian Pacific -What is Being Published and Where?
reports, peer-reviewed articles Contact details and Internet websites Figure 1.Concept of a Local Registration Center as a Major Research and Cancer Control Resource DOI

Table 2 . Country Comparisons of Areas of Interest Covered in Cancer Registration Research
Inc, incidence only; Epid, analytical epidemiology, includes risk fact assessment, ethnic and socio/geographical variation; Mort, mortality and/or survival only; qual, quality and methodology; CC, relevance to cancer control programs