Alternate Name	Item#	Length	Source of Standard	Column #
	2520	1000	NPCR	5565-6564

Description
Text area for manual documentation from the history and physical examination about the history of the current tumor and the clinical description of the tumor.

Rationale
Text documentation is an essential component of a complete electronic abstract and is heavily utilized for quality control and special studies. Text is needed to justify coded values and to document supplemental information not transmitted within coded values. High-quality text documentation facilitates consolidation of information from multiple reporting sources at the central registry.

The text field must contain a description that has been entered by the abstractor independently from the code(s). If cancer abstraction software generates text automatically from codes, the text cannot be utilized to check coded values. Information documenting the disease process should be entered manually from the medical record and should not be generated electronically from coded values.

Instructions

• Prioritize entered information in the order of the fields listed below.
• Text automatically generated from coded data is not acceptable.
• NAACCR-approved abbreviations should be utilized (see Appendix G).
• Do not repeat information from other text fields.
• Additional comments can be continued in empty text fields, including Remarks. For text documentation that is continued from one text field to another, use asterisks or other symbols to indicate the connection with preceding text.
• If information is missing from the record, state that it is missing.
• Do not include irrelevant information.
• Do not include information that the registry is not authorized to collect.

Note: For abstracting software that allows unlimited text, NAACCR recommends that the software indicate to the abstractor the portion of the text that will be transmitted to the central registry.

Suggestions for text:

• Date of physical exam
• Age, sex, race/ethnicity
• History that relates to cancer diagnosis
• Primary site
• Histology (if diagnosis prior to this admission)
• Tumor location
• Tumor size
• Palpable lymph nodes
• Record positive and negative clinical findings. Record positive results first
• Impression (when stated and pertains to cancer diagnosis)
• Treatment plan

Data Item(s) to be verified/validated using the text entered in this field
After manual entry of the text field, ensure that the text entered both agrees with the coded values and clearly justifies the selected codes in the following fields:

	Item name	Item number
	Date of 1st Contact	580
	Date of Diagnosis	390
	Age at Diagnosis	230
	Race 1 - 5	160-164
	Spanish Hispanic Origin	190
	Sex	220
	Primary Site	400
	Laterality	410
	Histologic Type ICD-O-3	522
	Sequence Number--Hospital	560
	Collaborative Stage variables	2800-2930
	SEER Summary Stage 1977	760
	SEER Summary Stage 2000	759