SEER Inquiry System - Search

A patient has a left breast cancer diagnosed in 2011; then has a "recurrence" in her lymph nodes in 2017. In 2018, she has a new left breast mass that is the same histology and behavior as the 2011 cancer. Based on the 2017 "recurrence" in the lymph nodes, this is not a new breast primary, is that correct?

For certain facilities in our area, the breast pathology reports using a CAP protocol format are formatted as follows; the Final Diagnosis will state Infiltrating carcinoma with the following features. The features list the specific tumor characteristics required in the CAP protocol formatting. The histology is always displayed in the list form and specified as Histologic type: (for example, Histologic type: Ductal carcinoma). Is this specific histology really to be ignored because it is preceded by the word type even if this is just a consequence of the pathology report formatting?

The previous SEER Program Coding and Staging Manual included Appendix C that has Coding Guidelines for some sites. The breast guidelines specifically instructed one to code the subsite with the invasive tumor when the pathology report identifies invasive tumor in one subsite and in situ tumor in a different subsite or subsites. The current Breast Solid Tumor Rules Table 1: Primary Site Codes refers one back to the SEER Manual and COC Manual for a source document priority list but does not make mention of invasive vs. in situ on that final version of the source document.

In addition, the Colon Solid Tumor Rules currently contains no Site Coding Section/Table. However, the Lung Solid Tumor Rules do and also refer one to the SEER/COC Manuals for document priority lists. The Urinary Solid Tumor Rules has both the Primary Site Codes Table and an additional section called Priority for Coding Primary Site, which does not reference a document priority list or other manuals. Unfortunately, there is additional information in Appendix C Bladder Coding Guidelines that may have been used in the past regarding site source priority.

Could the remaining applicable Appendix C information be consolidated into the Solid Tumor Rules consistently among all the sites to lessen the need for additional manual referencing? Also, is there a reason one site includes the Priority Site Coding instructions and others do not?

CT chest findings: 1. There is a dominant 1 cm. nodule in the left mid lung. 2. In addition, there is a new rather dominant bilobed nodule in the left lung base. 3. Distant metastases are not identified. Four months later, a doctor's note says routine follow-up visit status post Cyber Knife stereotactic body radiation therapy for synchronous early stage non-small cell carcinomas of the left upper and left lower lobes, both Stage IA. He is medically inoperable. This situation is described as a second primary tumor in AJCC8 page 438. However, by the 2018 Lung Solid Tumor rules, this would be a single primary, per rule M7. Is that correct?

Example: Patient has multiple biopsies with final diagnosis of in situ papillary urothelial carcinoma in the prostatic urethra and invasive papillary urothelial carcinoma in the bladder.

How should primary site be coded in this type of mixed in situ and invasive situation?

Example: Right breast core biopsy found ductal carcinoma in situ in the upper outer quadrant. Subsequent resection has a final diagnosis of invasive mucinous carcinoma, grade 1, measuring approximately 7 mm, with close margins. See staging summary. Gross description mentions only the primary tumor with associated marker clip from previous biopsy.

Breast Cancer Staging Summary lists (testing and margins removed for brevity):

Procedure type: Lumpectomy.

Specimen laterality: Right.

Tumor size: 7mm.

Histologic type: Invasive mucinous carcinoma.

Histologic grade (Nottingham histologic score): Grade 1, (score 5/9).

Tumor focality: Single focus.

Lymph-vascular invasion: Not identified.

Treatment effect: No known therapy.

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS): Present.

Architectural pattern: Cribriform.

Nuclear grade: Grade 1.

Necrosis: Not identified.

Calcifications: Not identified.

Estimated size/extent of DCIS: Spanning an area measuring 15mm.

Pathologic stage: pT1b, pNx. (AJCC 8th ed).

Distant metastasis: Not applicable.

Additional findings: Background lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS), flat epithelial atypia (FEA), and atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH).

Patient has a 1.7 cm encapsulated papillary carcinoma staged as pTis located 2 cm from the nipple and Paget disease of the nipple on mastectomy pathology.

There is no indication in Table 3: Specific Histologies, NOS/NST, and Subtypes/Variants that encapsulated papillary carcinoma is a subtype of ductal carcinoma. Rule M8 notes that if the histology of the underlying tumor is any histology OTHER THAN duct or subtypes of duct, one should continue through the rules. But if M9 applies to this case, then incidence reporting will be increased in comparison to prior years.

Example: Patient has a secretory carcinoma of minor salivary gland tissue (mammary analogue secretory carcinoma [MASC]) of the mucosal lower lip; it is unclear which table to use and how to arrive at the correct histology using the H Rules.

Rule H1 (code the histology when only one histology is present) states, Note 1: Use Tables 1-9 to code histology. There is no table that includes the lip. The correct histology should be 8502 which is listed in Table 6 (Tumors of Salivary Glands) however this does not correspond to minor salivary glands of the mucosal lip (site C003 per ICD-O-3 coding instruction).

The 2018 ICD-O-3 Update table does not include this histology, however Table 6 indicates code 8502 (secretory carcinoma) is a new code that was approved by IARC/WHO.

The ICD-O-3 only includes this histology as secretory carcinoma of breast. Therefore, in order to arrive at the correct histology, one must be aware of previous SINQ entries 20160036 and 20130003 that indicate secretory carcinoma (or MASC) is histology 8502. However, these are related to MP/H Rules, so registrars may be hesitant to apply this guideline to cases coded using Solid Tumor Rules.