Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center announced that Danielle Ritchie will now serve as the organization’s director of tumor registry. She is charged with leading the tumor registry team and providing ongoing management of registry services for the Cancer Center’s comprehensive and integrated oncology program.
“At Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, we take a data-driven approach to research and cancer treatment development,” said Jonas Fontenot, PhD, chief operating officer and chief of physics, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. “Through careful cancer surveillance, sophisticated data tracking and a stellar team of registrars, our tumor registry arms us with information to guide our decision-making and steer our cancer fighting strategy. It gives us the data we need to plan and evaluate cancer prevention and control interventions, allowing us to deploy our resources in ways that most benefit our communities.”
"We are excited to have Danielle at the helm of our tumor registry. Her in-depth knowledge and experience will help ensure that Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center stays on the leading-edge of cancer research and treatment.”
Ritchie has nearly 14 years’ experience in cancer registry data collection and management. She returns to Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center after previously working for the organization for 11 years. Ritchie earned her tumor registrar certification in March 2018 and serves as a member of the Louisiana Cancer Registrar’s Association and the National Cancer Registrar’s Association.
The tumor registry functions under the quality services department to collect data on cancer type, stage, and treatment results and offers lifelong patient follow-up. These cases are reported, as required and per HIPAA standards, to the American College of Surgeons (ACoS), the Louisiana Tumor Registry (LTR), the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) and the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program of the National Cancer Institute. When combined with other cancer cases nationally, researchers can identify trends in cancer incidence and mortality, as well as patterns in diagnosis, treatment and survival.