Impact of institutional accreditation by the Japan Society of Gynecologic Oncology on the treatment and survival of women with cervical cancer

OBJECTIVE: The Japan Society of Gynecologic Oncology (JSGO) initiated a nation-wide training system for the education and certification for gynecologic oncologists in 2005. To assess the impact of the quality of the JSGO-accredited institutions, JSGO undertook an analysis of the Uterine Cervical Cancer Registry of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (JSOG) to determine the effectiveness of the JSGO-accredited institutions on the treatment and survival of women with cervical cancer. METHODS: The effectiveness of 119 JSGO-accredited institutions and 125 non-JSGO-accredited institutions on the treatment and survival of women with cervical cancer were compared by analyzing the tumor characteristics, treatment patterns, and survival outcomes of women with stage T1B–T4 cervical cancer utilizing the data in the JSOG nation-wide registry for cervical cancer (2006–2009). RESULTS: A total of 14,185 eligible women were identified: 10,920 (77.0%) cases for 119 JSGO-accredited institutions and 3,265 (23.0%) cases for 125 non-accredited institutions. A multivariate analysis showed that age, stage, histology type, and treatment pattern were independently associated with mortality. Moreover, women who received treatment at the JSGO-accredited institutions had a significantly decreased mortality risk compared to non-accredited institutions (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR]=0.843; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.784–0.905). Similar findings on multivariate analysis were seen among subset of women who received surgery alone (aHR=0.552; 95% CI=0.393–0.775) and among women who received radiotherapy (aHR=0.845; 95% CI=0.766–0.931). CONCLUSION: Successful implementation of gynecologic oncology accrediting institution was associated with improved survival outcome of women with cervical cancer in Japan.