Information about 2009 Changes to the Cancer Program Standards

This page contains links to all of the available information describing the 2009 changes to the Cancer Program Standards. This information is for use both by CoC-approved facilities and those working toward approval.

Additional resources will be posted on this page as they become available.

2009 Letter to CoC-accredited Cancer Programs (540K PDF)

Standards Update 2009 Replacement Pages

Print these current replacement pages for your copy of Cancer Program Standards 2004, Revised Edition

• Standard 2.8, Revised July 2008 (15K PDF)
• Standard 2.10 Revised July 2008 (20K PDF)
• Standard 3.7 Revised July 2008 (10K PDF)
• Standard 4.3 Revised July 2008 (20K PDF)
• Standard 4.6 Revised September 2008 (25K PDF)
• Standard 7.1 Revised July 2008 (20K PDF)

FAQs

These documents provide additional information about the 2009 changes. The documents will be updated as additional questions and answers are identified.

Frequently Asked Questions for Standard 4.3 November 2008 (45K PDF)

Frequently Asked Questions for Standard 4.6 November 2008 (40K PDF)

Best Practices for Meeting the 2009 Changes

These examples of methods to meet the standards were provided by CoC-approved facilities. Additional Best Practices will be posted as they become available.

Clinical staging policy October 2008 (10K PDF)

This document sets forth the definition of synoptic reporting in cancer-related pathology reports that was developed by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) cancer committee and also provides pathology report samples that both meet and don't meet the synoptic reporting requirement. This definition will be used to assess the CoC-approved program's eligibility for the Commendation rating for standard 4.6

Synoptic definition and samples January 2009 (40K PDF)

Revised February 25, 2009