International Classification of Diseases for Oncology

Book excerpt: This edition of ICD-O, the standard tool for coding diagnoses of neoplasms in tumour and cancer registrars and in pathology laboratories, has been developed by a working party convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer / WHO. ICD-O is a dual classification with coding systems for both topography and morphology. The book has five main sections. The first provides general instructions for using the coding systems and gives rules for their implementation in tumour registries and pathology laboratories. Section two includes the numerical list of topography codes, which remain unchanged from the previous edition. The numerical list of morphology codes is presented in the next section, which introduces several new terms and includes considerable revisions of the non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukaemia sections, based on the WHO Classification of Hematopoietic and Lympoid Diseases. The five-digit morphology codes allow identification of a tumour or cell type by histology, behaviour, and grade. Revisions in the morphology section were made in consultation with a large number of experts and were finalised after field-testing in cancer registries around the world. The alphabetical index gives codes for both topography and morphology and includes selected tumour-like lesions and conditions. A guide to differences in morphology codes between the second and third editions is provided in the final section, which includes lists of all new code numbers, new terms and synonyms added to existing code definitions, terms that changed morphology code, terms for conditions now considered malignant, deleted terms, and terms that changed behaviour code.