Seventh Edition of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual

The AJCC Cancer Staging Manual (with staging forms included) is the gold standard to help the cancer patient management team determine the correct stage for patients and the most appropriate care plan

The AJCC Cancer Staging Manual and Handbook, prepared by the American Joint Committee on Cancer, are used by physicians and health care professionals throughout the world to facilitate the uniform description and reporting of neoplastic diseases. Proper classification and staging is essential for the physician to assign proper treatment, to evaluate results of management and clinical trials, and to serve as the standard for local, regional, and international reporting on cancer incidence and outcome.

The seventh edition of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual brings together all the currently available information on staging of cancer at various anatomic sites and incorporates newly acquired knowledge on the etiology and pathology of cancer. As knowledge of cancer biology expands, cancer staging must incorporate these advances. The current revision provides evidence-based staging based upon the established tenets of the TNM (tumor, lymph node, metastasis) classification system supplemented by selected molecular markers. Relevant markers supported by evidence and of sufficient impact for treatment decisions have been included to define stage, for example Gleason score and prostate-specific antigen in prostate cancer.

Organized by disease site into 57 comprehensive chapters, the seventh edition features much-anticipated, major revisions to many chapters, including breast, colon, prostate, kidney, and others. There are new primary site chapters for extrahepatic bile ducts, distal bile duct, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, and the adrenal gland plus a vastly expanded section on ophthalmologic malignancies.

User-friendly enhancements include the following:

• a revised and expanded presentation of the principles and rules of TNM staging
• a concise summary of changes in the TNM classification system, and each chapter is prefaced with "Staging at a Glance," providing a snapshot of staging and coding details
• numerous new line drawings illustrating key sites throughout the text
• full color text to highlight elements of TNM, stage groupings, and prognostic factors
• a revised user-friendly "Staging Form"
• a CD-ROM packaged with each manual containing printable Staging Forms

The seventh editions of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual and Handbook remain the essential references for oncologists, pathologists, surgeons, cancer registrars, and medical professionals worldwide to ensure that all those taking care of cancer patients are fully versed in the language of cancer staging.

The AJCC Cancer Staging Atlas (based on the 6th Edition) contains hundreds of black-and-white illustrations, created exclusively for the book, depicting the anatomic extent of disease for tumor (T), regional lymph node (N), and distant metastasis (M) for multiple sites, including head and neck, digestive system, thorax, musculoskeletal, soft tissue, breast, genitourinary, and gynecologic sites. The images provide thorough anatomic depictions to clarify critical structures and allow the reader to instantly visualize the progressive extent of malignant disease. Numerous labels identify important anatomic structures.

Packaged with the book is a CD-ROM, AJCC Cancer Staging Illustrations in PowerPoint®. This CD provides the purchaser with PowerPoint® slides of all 400 illustrations in the Staging Atlas for importation into any PowerPoint presentation for use at tumor boards, grand rounds, seminars, and lectures. (Figure legends and credit lines are embedded in each image.) Live links are provided for purchasers who wish to obtain permission to reprint the figures in other publications.

Electronic Staging Tool

With the release of the seventh edition of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual in October, an electronic staging tool is soon to follow. Many medical facilities are turning toward electronic medical records as a solution to eliminate paperwork and streamline the collection of information. For those institutions that are moving towards electronic record keeping an e-staging tool should be an exciting prospect.

Designed to meet the needs of all members of the patient management team, the e-Staging Tool will be available for purchase as an annual subscription product, for both individual and institutional users. The online forms are based on the new criteria in the seventh edition of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual. The final forms can be saved in a variety of formats and stored directly onto the user’s desktop or network. The e-Staging Tool is HL-7 compliant, making the integration of patient-specific data into existing electronic health record systems as smooth as possible. Users in a paper-based environment will also find the e-Staging Tool useful, as it will also calculate stage, incorporate predictive and prognostic factors and print out a PDF of a patient-specific Staging Form. (The e-Staging Tool replaces the Word document templates that were available with the sixth edition.)

The application is web-based, so no patient information is compromised. The application is compatible with all major EMR/EHR systems and both PC and MAC operating systems.

Projected availability - late Summer 2010