|
|
International Classification of Childhood Cancer, third
edition
Steliarova-Foucher E, Stiller C, Lacour B, Kaatsch P
International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
steliarova@iarc.fr
Background. The third edition of the International Classification of
Diseases for Oncology (ICD-O-3), which was published in 2000, introduced
major changes in coding and classification of neoplasms, notably for
leukemias and lymphomas, which are important groups of cancer types that
occur in childhood.
This necessitated a third revision of the 1996
International Classification of Childhood Cancer (ICCC-3).
Methods. The
tumor categories for the ICCC-3 were designed to respect several principles:
agreement with current international standards, integration of the entities
defined by newly developed diagnostic techniques, continuity with previous
childhood classifications, and exhaustiveness.
Results. The ICCC-3
classifies tumors coded according to the ICD-O-3 into 12 main groups, which
are split further into 47 subgroups.
These 2 levels of the ICCC-3 allow
standardized comparisons of the broad categories of childhood neoplasms in
continuity with the previous classifications.
The 16 most heterogeneous
subgroups are broken down further into 2-11 divisions to allow study of
important entities or homogeneous collections of tumors characterized at the
cytogenetic or molecular level.
Some divisions may be combined across the
higher-level categories, such as the B-cell neoplasms within leukemias and
lymphomas.
Conclusions. The ICCC-3 respects currently existing international
standards and was designed for use in international, population-based,
epidemiological studies and cancer registries.
The use of an international
classification system is especially important in the field of pediatric
oncology, in which the low frequency of cases requires rigorous procedures
to ensure data comparability.
Copyright 2005 American Cancer Society.
PMID: 15712273 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
|
