California Cancer Reporting System Standards Volume I: Abstracting and Coding Procedures
Record the definitive cancer-directed treatment that cannot be assigned to any other category. Information on other therapy is used to describe and evaluate the quality of care and treatment practices.
Hyperbaric oxygen (as adjunct to definitive treatment).
Hyperthermia (given alone or in combination with chemotherapy, as in isolated heated limb perfusion for melanoma).
Photophoresis. Used only for thin melanoma or cutaneous T-Cell lymphoma (mycosis fungoides).
PUVA (Psoralen (P) and long-wave ultraviolet radiation (UVA)). Rarely used for thin melanoma or cutaneous T-Cell lymphoma (mycosis fungoides).
Cancer vaccines are still in the experimental phase. Currently, clinical trials use cancer vaccines for brain, breast, colon, kidney, lung, melanoma, and ovary.
Any experimental drug that cannot be classified elsewhere.
Double blind clinical trial information where the type of agent administered is unknown and/or there is any use of a placebo. However, after the code is broken, report the treatment under the appropriate category (a correction record should be submitted when the data are available).
Unorthodox and unproven treatment, such as laetrile or krebiozen.
NOTE: Do not code pre-operative embolization of hypervascular tumors with agents such as particles, coils, or alcohol as treatment. These pre-surgical treatments are typically performed to prevent excess bleeding during the resection of the primary tumor.
The principal treatment for certain reportable hematopoietic diseases could be supportive care that does not meet the usual definition of treatment that “modifies, controls, removes, or destroys” proliferating cancer tissue.
Supportive care may include phlebotomy, transfusion, or aspirin.
NOTE: In order to report the hematopoietic cases in which a patient received supportive care, SEER and the Commission on Cancer have agreed to record treatments such as phlebotomy, transfusion, or aspirin as “Other Treatment” (Code 1) for certain hematopoietic diseases only.
Refer to the most current Hematopoietic and Lymphoid Database and the Hematopoietic & Lymphoid Neoplasm Coding Manual for coding instructions regarding specific hematopoietic neoplasms in this item.
NOTE: Do not collect blood transfusions (whole blood, platelets, etc.) as treatment for any of these diseases. Blood transfusions are used widely to treat anemia and it is not possible to collect this procedure in a meaningful way. This applies to cases diagnosed January 1, 2012 and forward only.