Field & Screen. Suggestions. Inside this issue: Something New in OncoLog

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Florence Richards
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1 2 5 Something New in OncoLog We take pride in the fact that OncoLog has always been the trendsetter in survival analysis for cancer registries, first to link to professional graphics, first to

1 Field & Screen Inside this issue: Onco, Inc. Something New in OncoLog A New Anatomic Report Staging Scenarios Spotlight on Long- Standing Programs Cancer Awareness Months Featured Client Coding Thyroid Cancer A Quiz Did You Know? We ve Moved! Something New in OncoLog We take pride in the fact that OncoLog has always been the trendsetter in survival analysis for cancer registries, first to link to professional graphics, first to provide true Kaplan-Meier analyses, first to calculate relative survival, etc., etc. Soon you will be receiving OncoLog Version..1 and with that a major upgrade in outcomes calculation possibilities that will leave competing registries scrambling to catch up. Credit to our software engineer extraordinaire, Timothy Mills. We ve changed the name: Survival analysis is just one application of the mathematical models for studying the statistics of times between two events. Now you will be able to do the other stuff as well. In the lowhanging fruit of meaningful clinical studies are such projects as monitoring your progress in shortening the time from diagnosis to initiation of treatment (pick any disease). Now you will be able to do that with ease. Publication-ready graphic:. A lot of cancer doctors want to publish their outcomes. With this update Tim has refined the graphics and added font and legend controls in a manner that will allow you to generate survival and time-to-event curves that are publication ready, and, frankly, look better than most of the survival curves we see in the medical literature. Use your cancer conferences as a venue to show your doctors and administrators what you can do. Quiz Answer Suggestions ONCO welcomes any suggestions/ideas for the applications or future newsletters. If you have any information you could share with other users, please do not hesitate to forward onto Client Support Services at or support@oncolog.com. 5 Features, features, features: Here is a preview of some of the new (and returning) features in this exciting package: Define your study groups as precisely as you want using the AdHoc reporting feature of Gather then put them together in any combination on a single graphic. Compare as many as a dozen different patient groups (way too many!!) on a single graphic. Display data in the traditional time-to-event format (example at right). Calculate the normal survival probability of each population with a precision unheard of in the registry business. Electively display the normal survival probability in the same graphic as the survival curve. Calculate and display relative survival for any combination of study groups. Display survival data in a semi-log plot (very useful in some situations). Edit study group names at run time (the default is the name you give the saved filter group). Compare any pair of groups for the statistical significance of differences in outcomes.

View and export a statistical summary for each group including average and median age, standard deviation of the age distribution, distribution by sex, and median survival.

2 Page 2 Calculate time-to-event or survival between any pair of dates in your database. Calculate cause-specific survival using either the Cancer Status (good for some sites) or OncoLog s proprietary Follow-up Status for Outcome Studies (good for all sites). View and export a statistical summary for each group including average and median age, standard deviation of the age distribution, distribution by sex, and median survival. View detailed life tables for each group and export the data directly to Excel (see figure below to the right). In summary: OncoLog Time-To-Event analysis gives you just about everything you ve ever asked for (even more planned for version..2). Ted Williamson, MD, PhD, CTR (ret) A New Anatomic Report for..1 At last, an anatomic report with a focus on gynecologic malignancies. Requested by a very special client (hey you OncoLoggers are all special), the graphic report provides a focus on the distribution of cases with site codes between C51.0 and C58.9. If your doctors are interested in the histologies you will find them as well, in the QA grids, ready for export to Excel and custom analysis or reporting. There is a grid of histologies for all the sites and a set of grids with details grouped by the two-digit site category (C51, C5, etc.). There is even a grid to identify all the gynecologic cases of, oops, male gender as well as other coding misadventures. This is another example of a situation in which one OncoLog report equals many reports to any other registry developer.

Based on an old CoC policy that goes back a number of years (originally concerning GYN sites), the patient s T classification should be coded to A.

3 Page Field & Screen Staging Scenarios So, you are working along and come to a patient diagnosed with melanoma. As you are reading the chart, you notice that the physician (surgeon, dermatologist, pathologist) does not mention ulceration of the lesion. What to do? How to stage? Based on an old CoC policy that goes back a number of years (originally concerning GYN sites), the patient s T classification should be coded to A. The presence of ulceration (B) is far more likely to get a specific comment than the absence of ulceration (A) - unless the mitotic rate is high. Spotlight on Long-Standing Programs The ACoS recently recognized CoC-accredited cancer programs that have maintained their accreditation for 9- consecutive years. We would like to salute our Long-Standing Programs! Adventist Medical Center Portland, OR 1969 Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center Corvallis, OR 1969 University of Mississippi Medical Center Jackson, MS 1971 SSM St. Mary s Health Center St. Louis, MO 197 Hackensack University Medical Center Hackensack, NJ 197 St. Vincent Hospital & Health Services Indianapolis, IN 197 Overlake Hospital Medical Center Bellevue, WA 197 Cancer Awareness Months January Cervical Cancer Screening Month February National Cancer Prevention Month Featured Client Would you like to be featured on our website? Onco is currently accepting submissions of articles that will highlight aspects of your cancer program and how Onco Products help you achieve your goals! Interested in having your hospital featured and helping us out? Or would you just like to make a comment that can be used for marketing our products? Contact Heidi today at hhendrickson@oncolog.com!

Page Coding Thyroid Cancer A couple of OncoLoggers have asked Support why, when they code a thyroid malignancy to 8050/ (Papillary Carcinoma, NOS) or 8510/ (Medullary Carcinoma, a.k.a. Medullary Adenocarcinoma), does the Site by Major Groups auto-code to 59 Unstageable.

Not trusting our own judgment on this we consulted with two experienced pathologists and no less than April Fritz, lead editor of the ICD-O- manual.

As indicated in the manual (page 76), thyroid papillary tumors should be coded to something in the range 80/ 87/.

Note that 8510/ is grouped with a collection of breast malignancies and medullary breast cancers are Adenocarcinomas.

4 Page Coding Thyroid Cancer A couple of OncoLoggers have asked Support why, when they code a thyroid malignancy to 8050/ (Papillary Carcinoma, NOS) or 8510/ (Medullary Carcinoma, a.k.a. Medullary Adenocarcinoma), does the Site by Major Groups auto-code to 59 Unstageable. The answer, quite simply, is that these are not appropriate codes for thyroid malignancies. Not trusting our own judgment on this we consulted with two experienced pathologists and no less than April Fritz, lead editor of the ICD-O- manual. We learned that 8050/ is intended for epithelial origins (it is grouped with squamous neoplasms) like bladder, skin, trachea, etc. As indicated in the manual (page 76), thyroid papillary tumors should be coded to something in the range 80/ 87/. Likewise, appropriate thyroid Medullary Carcinoma codes are found on the same page (85-87). One of our pathologists was adamant that thyroid medullary tumors are not Adenocarcinomas. Note that 8510/ is grouped with a collection of breast malignancies and medullary breast cancers are Adenocarcinomas. We hope that the 8th edition of the Staging Manual will address this issue rather than suggesting that virtually any 8000 series histology can originate in the thyroid. A Quiz In the following snippet from the latest Cancer Program Standards Manual we are told that the only cancer treatment available in 191 was surgery. True or False? Did You Know? While working in ONCO, you can export data to Excel with the click of a button! If you have a grid with a listing of data showing on your screen, just click the Ctrl and E keys on your keyboard and the data will be exported to an Excel spreadsheet.

Page 5 We ve Moved! Field & Screen Our home office recently moved to Farmingdale, New Jersey. We can still be reached at 800-5- 6626. Please see the information to the right for our updated address.

The Facts: By 191 there were radiation therapy centers all over the Western world. There is some argument as to who should claim credit but we like the story of Dr. Emil H.

We should also note that there were practitioners using immunotherapy to treat cancer (Coley s toxins or horse serum) even before the discovery of x-rays. P.S.

5 Page 5 We ve Moved! Field & Screen Our home office recently moved to Farmingdale, New Jersey. We can still be reached at Please see the information to the right for our updated address. ONCO, Inc. CJS Corporate Center 151 Highway Suite 02 Farmingdale, NJ Quiz Answer False of course! Our medical director is a radiation oncologist. Would we have bothered to ask if it was true? The Facts: By 191 there were radiation therapy centers all over the Western world. There is some argument as to who should claim credit but we like the story of Dr. Emil H. Grubbe who claims to have been the first to use x-rays therapeutically when he treated Mrs. Rose Lee of Chicago for breast cancer ( nodular returns post-operative ) on January 1, We should also note that there were practitioners using immunotherapy to treat cancer (Coley s toxins or horse serum) even before the discovery of x-rays. P.S. Our friends at the CoC have promised to correct this grievous error in the next edition of CPS. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Phone: Registry Support: 2 Technical Support: Onco Sales: Fax: support@oncolog.com Products: OncoLog Cancer Registry Protocol Data Manager Quality Indicator Manager Physician Staging and Follow-up Manager Interface Manager

Field & Screen. Suggestions. Happy Independence Day!

Field & Screen. Suggestions. Happy Independence Day! Field & Screen Summer 013 Onco, Inc. Inside this issue: Message from ON- CO Cancer Awareness Months 1 1 ONCO, Inc. would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Fourth of July! Our office will be closed