Recently, 500 cancer programs received their re-accreditation survey notification from the Commission on Cancer (CoC) for 2016 and next year another 500 programs will be notified of their 2017 planned re-accreditation survey.  This group of 1000 cancer programs have an important decision to make sooner rather than later.  Does your program need a mock survey?  Will your program benefit from a mock survey?  Will a mock…

Answer:      pTis, pN blank, pM blank Stage group 0 Carcinoma in situ is an exception to the staging group guidelines. By definition CIS has not spread to regional nodes or distant sites. Per AJCC 7th edition, pTis, cN0, cM0 should be reported as both clinical and pathologic stage 0 – if criteria for pathologic staging has been met.

Robert Flanigan (pictured on the far left)  knows how to captain a ship, drop anchor, sail rough seas and float through calm and relaxing waters. Ironically, he is shown in the attached photo with an old high school friend aboard a sailboat called “Defiant” which means to resist behaving or conforming to what is expected. Wearing his surveyor cap he is hardly defiant, he is frankly more…

Question: “A patient presents with blood in their stool, underwent colonoscopy positive for cancer and was taken to the OR for sigmoidectomy as definitive treatment.  There was not an impending bowel obstruction and the resection was definitive treatment.  A week after surgery the patient had a PET scan and MRI which both demonstrated liver mets.  The patient was started on chemotherapy.  Since clinical stage stops at…