National Cancer Registrars Association

The National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA) is a not-for-profit association representing cancer registry professionals and Certified Tumor Registrars (CTR). NCRA's primary focus is education and certification with the goal to ensure all cancer registry professionals have the required knowledge to be superior in their field. Worldwide, there are over 5,000 NCRA members and nearly 4,500 CTRs.

Cancer Registrars capture a complete summary of the history, diagnosis, treatment & disease status for every cancer patient. Registrars' work leads to better information that is used in the management of cancer, and ultimately, cures.

Vision and Mission

NCRA Vision Statement: Improving lives through quality cancer data management. NCRA Mission Statement: Serve as the premier education, credentialing and advocacy resource for cancer data professionals.

The cancer registrar is concerned with the development, use, and maintenance of hospital, centralized, or special purpose cancer programs that meet the needs of physicians, administrators, and planners; protect the patients’ rights to privacy; and compliance with ethical and legal requirements of the health care delivery system. To provide members of the Association and other registry professionals with definitive and binding guidelines of conduct, the National Cancer Registrars Association adopted a Professional Practice Code of Ethics, outlining principles of professional conduct.

Certified Tumor Registrars certification

Certified Tumor Registrars (CTR) are certified by NCRA's Council on Certification. NCRA’s Council on Certification promotes standardization in the collection and use of cancer data through examination and certification of Cancer Registrars and other cancer data specialists. Since 1983, the CTR credential marks achievement, fosters professional pride, and is nationally recognized in recruitment and retention of registry personnel.

The Council’s mission is to create and maintain credentialing processes whereby the public can be assured that individuals certified by NCRA have met a level of competence required to provide accurate information for cancer surveillance and research activities.

External links

NCRA's Web page NCRA's Council on Certification