Cancer registration

RGST (암등록) is the registry table of the Cancer Public Library. One row is one registered cancer, diagnosed from 2012 through 2022, for 2,923,903 rows. A person with two cancers has two rows with the same SN_KEY, which joins the row to death, claims, screening, and the other tables.

Source

Variable names, codes, and the row count follow data dictionary version 4.0 (September 2026), Table 1 and the registry-table overview.

Variables

RGST has ten variables besides SN_KEY. Each has its own page in the variable list.

Variable	한글	Definition
SEX	성별	1 man, 2 woman
AGE	진단시 만나이	Age in full years at the first diagnosis date, in bands: 29 and under, five-year groups from 30 to 84, and 85 and older. One-year age requires a research-use plan and committee approval
ICD10	국제질병분류코드	Site in ICD-10, without the decimal (C161 for C16.1)
TCODE	원발부위코드	Primary site in ICD-O-3 topography, without the decimal
MCODE_GRP	조직학적진단그룹	Histology in 17 ICD-O-3 groups. A finer grouping requires a research-use plan
FDX	최초진단연월일	Date of first diagnosis, YYYYMMDD
TX	치료	Treatment within four months of diagnosis, as five digits of 0 or 1: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, hormone therapy. Surgery and radiation is 10100
METHOD	최종진단방법	Most definitive basis of diagnosis. 0 death certificate only, 1 clinical, 2 clinical test, 3 surgery or autopsy without histology, 4 special biochemical or immunological test, 5 cytology or hematology, 6 histology of a metastasis, 7 histology of the primary site, 8 autopsy
SEER_GRP	요약병기	SEER summary stage. 0 carcinoma in situ, 1 localized (국한), 2 regional (국소), 7 distant (원격), 9 unknown. A colorectal in situ code (D01.x) can also be coded 1, localized
MULTI_9911	'99–'11년 암진단 여부	Y if the person had a cancer diagnosed in 1999–2011, otherwise N

Province of residence is on the eligibility table, BFC, as SIDO_CD. Date and cause of death are on DEATH.

Registry diagnoses and claims diagnoses

A claims diagnosis is the code a provider billed, which can be a suspected cancer, a rule-out, or a cancer treated years earlier. RGST records a cancer the registry confirmed, with a date, a site, and a stage. A cohort defined from RGST therefore avoids the false positives and missed cases of a claims-based definition.

TX summarizes treatment within four months. The procedures, drugs, and dates are on the claims tables T200, T300, T400, and T530.

Detailed stage

SEER_GRP is the only stage variable on the customized RGST. Tumor size, nodes, metastasis, grade, and TNM stage are in the staging samples (표본 병기), for stomach, breast, colorectal, liver, and lung.