May2015 Internationally standardised, evidencebased pathology datasets for the reporting of major cancers In this issue ICCR update New website Ovary & Fallopian Tube – redefining primary site GU Dataset series ICCR Update Following incorporation in September 2014, the ICCR has formed a Board of Directors and a Dataset Steering Committee (DSC). The Board of Directors has strategic oversight of all ICCR operations and financial and legal responsibility for the running of the ICCR, and the DSC has responsibility for all activities relating to the development of ICCR cancer datasets. The ICCR Board and DSC met recently during the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) conference in Boston. As always the major focus of discussion was the progress of dataset production. With the decision to synchronise dataset development with the revision of the WHO Classification of Tumours ‘Blue books’, development of datasets has ramped up significantly over the past 12 months. The thoracic suite of datasets – heart, mesothelioma (including both pleura and peritoneum) and thymus, as well as an update of the existing lung cancer dataset are progressing well and are expected to be out for public consultation in the 3rd quarter of 2015. The Genitourinary suite of 12 datasets has commenced (see below for more details) and planning has commenced for the Head and Neck and Endocrine datasets to coincide with the updates to the WHO Classification of Tumours at these sites starting in 2016. New website The ICCR will be moving to a new website by mid 2015: www.iccr-cancer.org This new website will allow for much more detailed information to be made available including: • Revision history and authorship of each of our datasets • Membership of our Board and Dataset Steering Committee • How to provide feedback on any of the datasets • The publication schedule for upcoming datasets, and many other interesting topics. Our new website will also enable us to move from this current ’paper’ format of our newsletter to a more up-to-date ‘news’ page and so this will be our last pdf version of our newsletter. To stay up to date with the ICCR news please bookmark the website for future reference! Ovary/Fallopian Tube – redefining primary site The ICCR dataset for carcinoma of the Ovary, Fallopian Tube and Primary Peritoneal Site has now been published. Thank you to those who took the time to feed back on the dataset during the public consultation period! One of the more interesting aspects of this dataset is the recommendations from the expert panel on primary site assignment of high-grade pelvic serous carcinoma (HGSC). There is compelling evidence that the precursors of HGSC originate in the fallopian tube in patients with germline BRCA1 mutations, and accumulating evidence that this is also true for sporadic HGSC. Therefore, in the presence of serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma (STIC) or invasive HGSC in the tubal mucosa, assignment of a fallopian tube origin is recommended by the expert panel. Suggested criteria are discussed in more detail in the commentary in the published dataset, which is available at: www.rcpa.edu.au//Library/Practising‐pathology/ICCR/Cancer‐Datasets Using the published criteria to assign the site of origin of HGSC has obvious implications for cancer registration as the datasets become more widely adopted, with an inevitable increase in fallopian tube cancers and corresponding decrease in ovarian cancers. Because of the downstream impact of this type of change, the ICCR has invited the International Association of Cancer Registries (IACR) to the Dataset Steering Committee to facilitate communication with registries worldwide. As part of the ICCR development process, a journal article has been written by the expert panel which describes and discusses the evidence behind this and other elements in the ICCR dataset. The article has recently been accepted by Modern Pathology and will be available later in 2015. If you have any questions or comments you can email [email protected]. GU dataset series The WHO is currently revising the genitourinary (GU) tumour classification and the ICCR have commenced work on 12 GU datasets in parallel with this update. In order to streamline the process of development, 5 expert panels have been convened to cover each major anatomical site: 1. Prostate: which covers core/needle biopsy, TURP and includes an update to the existing radical prostatectomy dataset (chairs: James Kench, Australia and Lars Egevad, Sweden) 2. External genitalia: this covers testis, penis and includes a dataset for retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy (chair: Dan Berney, UK) 3. Urothelial: this includes ureter, bladder and urethra as well as a dataset covering TUR and bladder biopsy specimens (chair: David Grignon, USA) 4. Renal: this covers both nephrectomy and renal biopsy specimens (chairs: John Srigley, Canada and Brett Delahunt, New Zealand), and 5. Wilms tumour (chair: Gino Somers, Canada) These datasets will be closely aligned with the work of both the International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) and the International Agency on Research on Cancer (IARC). According to Prof John Srigley “we have enthusiastic co-operation from both IARC and ISUP in this development process and it will mean that the ICCR datasets will reflect the most up-to-date information and evidence.”