Eugene A. Woltering, MD, The James D. Rives Professor of Surgery and Neuroscience 
and Director of Surgical Research at LSU Health Sciences Center/Ochsner in Kenner, Louisiana, has been selected to serve as Chair of the Neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs) Expert Panel for the American Joint Committee on Cancer’s (AJCC) Cancer Staging System, 8th Edition.
Emily Bergsland, MD, a NET/gastrointestinal oncology specialist at the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center in California, has been named Vice-Chair of the Neuroendocrine Tumors panel.
“The opportunity to chair the NETs panel for the 8th edition of the AJCC staging manual is a once in a lifetime event,” says Dr. Woltering. “The 8th edition will continue to use the Tumor Node Metastasis (TNM) staging system as the backbone of neuroendocrine tumor staging. However, unlike previous editions, the 8th edition will add imaging, immunohistochemistry, biomarkers and genetics into the staging system. Our hope is that these new additions will make tumor staging a dynamic, changing process rather than a static event.”
The American Joint Committee on Cancer serves clinicians and the surveillance community through the most comprehensive anatomic staging data available, the Cancer Staging Manual and Cancer Staging Atlas. These publications are “recognized as the authoritative guides for cancer staging information and are used by tens of thousands of medical professionals every day.”
According to the AJCC, “Evidence-based anatomic staging continues to be the critical factor to understanding cancer and treating patients. New breakthroughs in oncologic, radiologic, pathologic and molecular science are opening up ever-more promising possibilities for precisely defining a prognosis and recommending a treatment based on a patient’s individual data.”
Cancer staging determines how much cancer is in the body, where it is located, the severity of a person’s cancer based on the size of the primary tumor and on the extent cancer has spread in the body. The AJCC describes the four different types of staging as clinical staging, pathologic staging, post-therapy or post-neoadjuvant therapy staging, and restaging. Read more here.
With an anticipated publication date in late 2016, the 8th edition of the Cancer Staging Manual is for patients diagnosed with cancer after January 2017. The manual will incorporate advances made in cancer research, staging, diagnosis, and treatment since the seventh edition was published in October 2009. The editorial development process will involve a collaboration of approximately 500 cancer experts from around the world, and will cover more than 60 primary disease sites.
