2018 Cancer Registry Changes – Reminders & Tips

Corry

Marketing Manager

As cancer registries nationwide begin trudging through the latest coding and staging changes for cases diagnosed in 2018, we wanted to share a few helpful reminders and tips!  

Solid Tumor Coding Rules – 2018

The 2018 Solid Tumor coding rules are used for:

  • Determining the number of primaries to abstract
  • Determining the appropriate histology to code

These rules replace the 2007 Multiple Primary & Histology (MP/H) Rules for the following sites ONLY:

  • Breast
  • Colon (including rectosigmoid and rectal cases)
  • Head & Neck
  • Kidney
  • Lung
  • Malignant CNS & Peripheral Nerves
  • Non-malignant CNS
  • Urinary sites

The 2007 Multiple Primary & Histology (MP/H) Rules should continue to be used for:

  • Cutaneous Melanoma
  • Other sites (with a few exceptions)

New STORE Manual Data Fields:

Sentinel and Regional Lymph Nodes, page 157 (download manual here):

Data Elements Required for Breast & Cutaneous Melanoma ONLY:

  • Date of sentinel lymph node biopsy, entered in CCYYMMDD format
  • Date of sentinel lymph node biopsy flag, entered in CCYYMMDD format
  • Sentinel lymph nodes examined
  • Sentinel lymph nodes positive

Data Elements Required for All Sites:

  • Date regional lymph node dissection, entered in CCYYMMDD format  
  • Date regional lymph node dissection flag, entered in CCYYMMDD format  
  • Regional Lymph Nodes Examined
  • Regional Lymph Nodes Positive

Radiation Data Items, starting on page 272 (download manual here):

  • Date Radiation Started entered in CCYYMMDD format    
  • Rx Date – Radiation Flag
  • Location of Radiation Treatment
  • Phase I, II, and III (if applicable)
    • The following fields repeat for Phases I, II, and III
      • Radiation Primary Treatment Volume
      • Radiation to Draining Lymph nodes
      • Radiation Treatment Modality
      • External Beam Radiation Planning Technique
      • Dose Per Fraction
      • Number of Fractions
      • Total Dose
  • Number of Phases of Radiation to this Volume
  • Radiation Treatment Discontinued Early
  • Total Dose
  • Radiation/Surgery Sequence
  • Date Radiation Ended entered in CCYYMMDD format    
  • RX Date Rad Ended Flag
  • Reason for No Radiation

RSA Registrar Staging Assistant:       

  • Helpful coding tool for:
    • EOD (Extent of Disease)
    • SEER Summary Stage
    • SSDI (Site Specific Data Items)
    • Grade
  • When searching you can use words or numbers to identify site and/or histologies, ie:
    • Search by ‘Prostate’, or
    • Search by C619, or
    • Search by ‘Adenocarcinoma’, or
    • Search by 8140
  • Primary Sites and applicable Histology codes are displayed for each schema
  • NET tumor schemas are different than non-NET tumors:
    • Separate schemas for
      • Colon and Rectum
      • NET Colon and Rectum
      • Pancreas
      • NET Pancreas
      • Stomach
      • NET Stomach
      • And several others…
        • Make sure to select the appropriate schema for histology type

Helpful Forum Posts:

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