Program Focuses on Role of Nutrition in Cancer Care
Join the American Cancer Society and the Food is Medicine Coalition for a six-session Food is Medicine ECHO program focused on integrating nutrition into cancer care. Designed for cancer center staff, oncologists, and multidisciplinary oncology care teams, this program equips participants with practical, evidence-based strategies for applying Food is Medicine approaches in clinical settings.
Through case-based learning and expert-led discussions, participants will examine food access challenges, and review approaches to screening, referral, and care delivery in real-world oncology and payment environments.
Sessions will be held monthly from July through December.
Educational Resources Support New Colorectal Cancer Screening Guideline
Following the release of the American Cancer Society’s revised colorectal cancer screening guideline, updated educational materials, including an easy-to-read booklet and fact sheet, are available.
The new recommendations, published in the American Cancer Society’s flagship journal, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, reflect the latest science, new cancer screening technologies, and a focus on expanding screening options to reduce barriers to access.
AAPA Grossing Guidelines Help to Maintain Accurate Staging
The American Association of Pathologists' Assistants (AAPA) Grossing Guidelines provide a clinically aligned framework of best practices for handling cancer resection specimens at the surgical gross bench, which is the point of initial pathology examination.
Because pathology findings determine cancer stage and guide treatment decisions, proper specimen management at this stage is essential for accurate staging and preservation of tissue integrity. The 67 protocols align with College of American Pathologists (CAP) Cancer Protocols and the AJCC Staging System, supporting nationally recognized standards for quality cancer care.
The AAPA guidelines, available free of charge to verified pathology professionals, are evolving toward a digital format for structured data capture that complements the CAP cancer protocols while focusing on the gross examination. The fourth edition includes structured gross descriptions, standardized terminology, and specimen handling steps designed to promote consistency and support genomic integrity for molecular testing and targeted therapy decision-making.
Structured reporting and metadata improve efficiency and patient safety by creating concise, standardized macroscopic summaries that support specialty-specific interpretations. These summaries can be leveraged to support quality standards across pathology, oncology, surgery, and radiology within an institution, through partnerships with national stakeholders, or as part of accreditation initiatives. Correlation of gross findings with imaging, surgical planning, intraoperative findings, biopsy diagnoses, and microscopic analysis enables longitudinal tracking and large-scale data analysis to support evidence-based improvements throughout diagnosis, treatment planning, and therapy.
By strengthening documentation consistency and promoting robust, uniform data collection, the guidelines support accreditation standards and registry reporting. Structured data capture empowers the development of artificial intelligence-enabled applications through the generation of standardized, high-quality datasets and creates opportunities for education and competency benchmarking to promote consistency across training and practice.
