We read with interest the recent article by Batumalai et al. published in Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 in which the authors evaluated the use of curative treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) using linked datasets of New South Wales (NSW) Cancer Registry, NSW electronic radiotherapy Oncology Data and Admitted Patient Data Collection. The study population were patients diagnosed with localized and locoregional NSCLC in NSW, Australia during 2009–2014. We would like to make three points about this important article.