Cancer treatment—systemic therapy agent name (primary cancer), antineoplastic drug code (Self-Instructional Manual for Tumour Registrars Book 8 3rd edn) X[X(39)]

Guide for use:

The purpose of collecting specific treatment information is to account for all treatment types, which may assist in evaluation of effectiveness of different treatment patterns. The actual agents used will sometimes be of interest.

Systemic therapy often involves treatment with a combination of agents. These may be known by acronyms but since details of drugs and acronyms may vary it is recommended that each agent be recorded separately.

Oral chemotherapy normally given on an outpatient basis should also be included.

New codes and names will need to be added as new agents become available for clinical use.

Hormone therapy agents and immunotherapy agents should be recorded under this data element.

National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program

Collecting dates for systemic therapy will allow evaluation of treatments delivered and of time intervals from diagnosis to treatment, from treatment to recurrence and from treatment to death.