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Background: Since 1985, a special work group involved in the coordination of hospital cancer registries in Germany (the Arbeitsgruppe zur Koordination Klinischer Krebsregister) has been collecting, storing, and analyzing data on tumor patients received from cancer centers, oncologic departments, and specialized practices., Methods: The documentation of tumor patients is based on information concerning localization, histologic findings, and tumor spread, among other things. The data are stored in a central data base administered by the work group. It currently contains data on approximately 500,000 oncologic patients., Results: During the period 1987-1992, 56,013 initial entries were made concerning patients with urologic tumors. Of these cases, tumors of the kidney (n = 11,424) constituted 20.4%. In 94.6% of the cases, histologic investigation revealed a renal cell carcinoma, classified as follows: pT1, 5.8%; pT2, 53.6%; pT3, 37.2%; and pT4, 3.4%. Tumors of the urinary bladder (n = 16,246) constituted 29.0% of all urologic tumors. In 93.8% of cases, a transitional cell carcinoma was detected, classified as follows: pTis, 1.0%; pTa, 36.9%; pT1, 29.6%; pT2, 16.9%; pT3, 11.4%; and pT4, 4.4%. Transitional cell carcinomas of the ureter or of the collecting system (n = 1846) constituted 3.3% of the cases. The proportion of testicular tumors (n 6594) amounted to 11.8%; 53.6% of the germ cell tumors (n = 6281) were seminomas and 46.6% were nonseminomas; 66.3% of the cases were lymph node negative. Tumors of the prostate (n = 19,903) constituted 35.5% of the cases. During the period 1987-1992, the proportion of lymph node positive prostate carcinomas decreased, from 39.8% to 16.2%., Conclusions: A detailed analysis of these data shows how hospital cancer registries can contribute to the discussion of issues regarding diagnosis and therapy of urologic tumors.