California Cancer Reporting System Standards Volume I: Abstracting and Coding Procedures
Per SEER Clarification, effective January 1, 2012 forward, date of first contact is the admission date when the patient was an inpatient or an outpatient at the reporting facility for:
Work-up of suspected cancer:
Example
Patient has a suspected cancer. As an inpatient for work-up or first-course treatment, the date of first contact is the date of admission to the facility.
Any part of the first-course treatment for known cancer:
Example
A patient is diagnosed elsewhere and was seen for preliminary planning for radiation. The patient is sent elsewhere for surgery and does not return for radiation until after a lengthy recovery. The date of first contact is the date the patient returned for radiation treatment. The date of the radiation work-up is not the date of first contact.
Class of Case change from non-analytic to analytic:
Example
The patient comes in for a consult only (class 30) and subsequently all or part of first course of treatment is given at your facility. The date of first contact is updated to the date when the case became analytic.
Patients admitted for other causes:
When cancer is an incidental finding for patients admitted as an inpatient at the reporting facility for another condition, the date of first contact is the date the cancer was first suspected.
Autopsy-only cases
Date of first contact is date of death
Inpatient: Enter the first date of admission as an inpatient for the reportable neoplasm, or the actual date when the diagnosis of a reportable neoplasm was made during the inpatient admission to the reporting facility.
Outpatient: Enter the date first diagnosed, treated, or seen as an outpatient for the reportable neoplasm.
See Sections Entering Dates, Date Format and Date Format Guide and Class of Case, for further information on coding and entering dates. Consult with your software vendor for specific data entry instructions.