In Taiwan, the population-based cancer registry was founded in 1979. Since then, the registry collected basic information, referred to the “20 items short-form system,” on incident cancer cases (including cancer-in-situ) within 1 year after the initial diagnosis from hospitals with more than 50-bed capacity throughout the country. Recorded items include date of birth, gender, time and method of diagnosis, cancer site and morphology, treatment summary and death. From 2002 onward, a “long-form” system was established to collect more detailed information of cancer staging, treatment and follow-up data from hospitals with more than 500 new cancer cases diagnosed annually. The number of recorded items increased from 20 to 65 in 2002, further to 95 in 2007, and to 114 in 2011. The long-form initially applied to six major cancers in Taiwan (oral cavity and pharynx, colon and rectum, liver, lung, breast and cervix uteri) and was extended to 10 leading cancers in both genders in 2009. Currently the Long Form is applied to 15 cancer types, as described in previous sections.

After the enactment of the Cancer Control Act in 2003, all reporting hospitals were mandated to submit cancer patient information to the cancer registry. Cancer registrar accreditation has begun since 2004 and the cancer site-specific factors (SSF) and risk factors were included in 2011. To ensure quality of cancer registries and enhancing the quality of cancer registry data, Taiwan Society of Cancer Registry was established in 2006, conducting random medical record review to ensure data accuracy since 2010.

The household registration system in Taiwan maintains birth, marital status, and death information and is administered by the Department of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior. Death certificates are collected through this system and transferred to MOHW for coding of cause of death (in ICD-10 system) and maintenance of the mortality database.