The Registry Partners January 2020 CTR Coding Break discusses abstracting when the sentinel lymph nodes fail to map and examples of different wording in the medical record. A sentinel lymph node biopsy is a surgical procedure that removes one or more nearby or regional lymph nodes to test for cancer cells to which cancer cells will likely spread to first. The procedure includes an injection…
The Registry Partners December 2019 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…
The Registry Partners November 2019 CTR Coding Break discusses neoadjuvant therapy. The presentation reviews types of neoadjuvant therapy, abstract fields affected by neoadjuvant therapy, and examples of unusual and aborted neoadjuvant therapy cases. Neoadjuvant treatment is given prior to the surgical procedure in an attempt to shrink the cancer so that the surgical procedure may not need to be as extensive. Examples of neoadjuvant therapy include…
The Registry Partners October 2019 CTR Coding Break discusses Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy and Regional Lymph Node Dissection. The presentation will review the Commission on Cancer’s 6 new data items relating to the sentinel lymph node biopsy and regional lymph node dissection, providing examples on how each data item is coded. The date item, date of sentinel lymph node biopsy is required for breast and…
