This month’s CTR Coding Break focuses on Coding Radiation Therapy Treatment. Coding for radiation treatment has changed significantly for cases beginning with a diagnosis date of 01/01/2018 to provide NCDB with a more complete and accurate description of contemporary radiation treatment. The following is a brief description with several examples taken directly from the CTR Guide to Coding Radiation Therapy Treatment v2.0, February 2020

  The February 2020 CTR Coding Break reviews the additional information for coding skin/melanoma surgery as communicated during the October 24, 2019, The Brief. The coding break walks through an example where the operative report may be used to determine the surgical code. The recording ends with a brief navigation of the Cancer Program News site where you may subscribe to The Brief for informative updates…

  The Registry Partners January Coding Break discusses abstracting when the sentinel lymph nodes fail to map and examples of different wording in the medical record.

The December CTR Coding Break reviews common exceptions to AJCC staging. The presentation walks through exceptions where the CTR may assign a clinical N within the pathological N category and where site-specific T values with the assignment of any N and M0 result in a specific stage group. Melanoma, Kidney, GIST, and Thyroid are some of the sites reviewed and the AJCC 8th edition in situ…