Table 2.

Guideline Concordance Quality of Nonmetastatic Colorectal Cancer Care in the Veterans Health Administration

Quality Indicator	Cancer Study Population	Qualified Study Sample (No. of patients)	Yes Results (%)
Preoperative CT scan of abdomen and pelvis prior to definitive surgical resection	Stages II and III colorectal cancer	1,729	72.1
Preoperative CEA determination prior to definitive surgical resection	Stages II and III colorectal cancer	1,729	82.8
Documented radial margins were free of tumor at the time definitive surgical resection	Stages II and III colorectal cancer	1,725*	81.2†
Referral to a medical oncologist	Stages II and III colorectal cancer	1,729	77.5
Adjuvant FU or capecitabine administered after definitive surgical resection	Stage III colorectal cancer	808	73.5
Surveillance colonoscopy within 7 to 18 months after definitive surgical resection for patients with documentation of no preoperative obstructing lesion	Stages I, II, and III colorectal cancer with no preoperative obstructing lesion documented	1,259	43.5

Abbreviations: CT, computed tomography; CEA, carcinoembryonic antigen; FU, fluorouracil.

^*Margins question was missing with four patients.

^†Of the 1.725 patients for whom the abstraction question pertaining to clear margins was answered, 1400 (81.2%) had documentation of clear margins, 207 (12.0%) had medical record indication that margins were not clear, and for 118 (6.8%) abstractors could not ascertain the margin status from the medical record.