American Joint Committee on Cancer

Collaborative Staging: Stay on Top of the Latest Changes is an online education presentation available through CoC Web Conference Series. This presentation provides NCRA approved 1 hour CE credit. This program is perfect for registrars just beginning to abstract 2008 cases, and will provide a basic understanding of the rationale behind the changes in CS Version 01.04.00, released October 31, 2007, effective for 2008 cases. It will guide participants through the changes to accommodate staging in the neoadjuvant therapy setting for many sites and will highlight many of the clarifications instituted to improve the accuracy of coding the various collaborative staging fields. This can be viewed any day of the week, at any time. Follow this link to register: http://www.facs.org/cancer/coc/webconf2008.html.

Created in conjunction with the Commission Cancer (CoC), the Online Education Center includes one hour training modules suitable for physicians and other medical and registry staff on TNM staging for breast, lymphoma, and colorectal cancers.

The fee based sessions are hosted online their entirety with synchronized audio, slides, and a written transcript. Sessions can be reviewed at your own pace, you may start and stop whenever you choose, and you may view them as many times as often as you like. Click on the session's name for a detailed summary.

Staging Moments, a facility-level educational series developed by the AJCC, is intended to promote physician discussion on proper and accurate cancer staging. For use in department cancer or tumor board conferences, this series offers succinct, case-based presentations following the common format of: symptom presentation; imaging work-up; and pathology diagnosis. The presentations target difficult and common staging scenarios and clarify the finer points of staging.

The Staging Moments slide sets include three cases for each site group and the staging schema for that site. Current sites offered: breast, colorectal, lung, head & neck, and melanoma.

Download one or all of the slide sets in this series. Designate an individual to lead the discussion. For each presentation, the physician audience can use the information provided to correctly stage the case. Following the staging decision, the leader can present the correct staging answer along with the rationale.

Intended for use by cancer program staff, this presentation clarifies the use of the Collaborative Staging System to capture AJCC TNM stage including what Collaborative Staging is, why we use it, and its general principles.

The AJCC has developed a slide library consisting of site-specific material covering a variety of tumors. This is an excellent teaching tool to compliment tumor conferences, physician CME events, or resident teaching conferences.

Each slide set includes the site-specific TNM, stage grouping, and pertinent survival data.

Please contact Donna Gress, AJCC Technical Specialist, at 312-202-5410 or dgress@facs.org if you have any questions regarding Staging Moments or the TNM Schema Slide Library

Published by the American Joint Committee on Cancer, this patient information brochure presents the concept of cancer staging for patients and families. It explains the TNM system, lists some commonly staged cancers, defines the concept of stage grouping, and discusses the purpose of the cancer registry. The complimentary brochure is available in English and Spanish!

05CA-0002A - Cancer Staging-What You Need to Know (English)
05CA-0002B - Las Estapas Del Cancer: Lo que usted debe saber (Spanish)

Based on the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual, 6^th edition, this seven poster set includes the TNM classification, stage grouping and anatomic drawings for seven cancer sites including:

Ideal for display in pathology departments, dictation areas, medical record/chart completion areas, physician offices, cancer registries and at tumor board and cancer conferences. Laminated and smudge-proof, the 17 x 22 color posters are suitable for framing.

breast
bladder
cervix
colorectal
corpus uterus
kidney

lung
ovary
pancreas
prostate
stomach
thyroid

In addition to the individual cards, there is a five-card set that includes the breast, cervix, colorectal, prostate and lung sites. There is no fee for individual orders. A nominal fee will be charged for multiple copies. These staging cards are available through the American Cancer Society Divisions or by calling 1-800-ACS-2345.

CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians Series

The AJCC has developed a series of articles related to the staging strategies outlined in the Cancer Staging Manual, 6th Edition. Each article describes TNM staging for a particular cancer site or system and includes clinical examples that illustrate the staging process. The articles emphasize the importance of accurate staging in clinical care, cancer research, and cancer surveillance, and include CME opportunities and patient pages. Click on the article name to access the article in PDF format.

TNM: Our Language of Cancer, an editorial by Frederick L. Greene, MD, FACS

An Evidence-Based Staging System for Cutaneous Melanoma, Charles Balch, MD, FACS, et. al.

The Staging of Colorectal Cancer: 2004 and Beyond, Carolyn C. Compton, MD, PhD, et. al.

TNM Staging of Cancers of the Head and Neck: Striving for Uniformity Among Diversity, Snehal G. Patel, MD, FRCS, et. al.

Staging Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, James O. Armitage, MD

Breast Cancer Staging: Working With the Sixth Edition of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual, Eva Singletary, MD, et. al.

Staging Soft Tissue Sarcoma: Evolution and Change, D. Kotilingham, et. al.

Staging of Primary Malignancies of Bone, Robert Heck Jr., MD, et. al.

Utilizing the Tumor-Node-Metastasis Staging for Prostate Cancer (130K PDF): The Sixth Edition, 2002, Sam S. Chang, MD, et. al.

Tumor-Node-Metastasis Staging of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma (325K PDF), Matthew H.G. Katz, MD, et. al.

The Staging of Cancer: A Retrospective and Prospective Appraisal, Frederick L. Greene, MD, et. al.

Other AJCC TNM Staging System Articles