Person with cancer—number of positive regional lymph nodes, total N[N]

Identifying and definitional attributes
Metadata item type:	Data Element
Short name:	Regional lymph nodes positive
METEOR identifier:	370027
Registration status:	Health, Superseded 07/12/2011
Definition:	The total number of regional lymph nodes reported as containing tumour after examination by a pathologist.
Data Element Concept:	Person with cancer—number of positive regional lymph nodes

Value domain attributes

Representational attributes

Representation class:

Total

Data type:

Number

Format:

N[NN]

Maximum character length:

Supplementary values:

Value	Meaning
997	Number of lymph nodes unknown

Data element attributes

Collection and usage attributes

Guide for use:

A list of which lymph nodes are defined as regional lymph nodes for each cancer site may be found in the TNM Classification of Tumours, 6th Edition, UICC.

Number includes all positive nodes regardless of whether removed/examined at a single or multiple procedures, e.g. for breast cancer, record the sum of positive nodes detected in node sampling/sentinel node biopsy and those removed at axillary clearance.

For cancer registries, collection of this data item should only be from notification and pathology reports relating to initial diagnosis and not for recurrent or metastatic disease.

Source and reference attributes

Origin:

Australian Cancer Network

Commission on Cancer American College of Surgeons

Reference documents:

Australian Cancer Network The pathology reporting of breast cancer. A guide for pathologists, surgeons and radiologists Second Edition Sydney (2001)

Commission on Cancer, Standards of the Commission on Cancer Registry Operations and Data Standards (ROADS) Volume II (1998)

Johnson CH, Adamo M (eds.), SEER Program Coding and Staging Manual 2007. National Cancer Institute, NIH Publication number 07-5581, Bethesda, MD 2007.

Relational attributes

Related metadata references:

Implementation in Data Set Specifications:

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