Kidney cancer staging application for clinical coding, pN coding and overview of surgery coding is presented in this month’s coding break. Multiple examples are reviewed and discussed to show how and when to appropriately assign clinical staging, and pN coding. Surgery coding information is briefly discussed as well, in addition to the new code(s)/structure of codes for diagnosis year 2023.  Imaging and physician statements regarding a…

In the Registry Partners March 2023 CTR Coding Break, we will review anatomy, signs, and symptoms of brain cancer, and diagnostic workup. We will also review abstracting aspects such as the Solid Tumor Rules, SSDIs, Staging, and Treatment.  Common diagnostic workup tests include the MRI of the Brain, CT, PET Scan, and/or cerebral arteriogram. This is used to visualize the tumor, size, extent of disease, and…

As a CTR in our profession of gathering data on patients diagnosed with cancer, it’s important we follow the manuals as written by the standard setters to correctly assign and code the fields we are required to collect. The data we collect and code every day is used by facility administrators, cancer committees, state central registries, NCDB, SEER and researchers with the end goal of improving…

This month’s CTR Coding Break topic is “The 2023 Overview of Changes”. 2023 is a big year for major changes to nearly all manuals utilized for the abstraction of cancer cases by State, CoC and/or SEER reporting facilities. In this presentation, we discuss the primary seven manuals: AJCC 9th Editions, Grade Manual, Solid Tumor Rules, ICD-O-3.2, STORE Manual, SSDI Manual and the SEER Program Coding and…