A type of CARE SPELL.

The period of time during which a PATIENT who has been diagnosed as suffering from a single site primary cancer or, in the case of particular skin cancers, one or more lesions may receive care. The CANCER CARE SPELL starts on the date of the REFERRAL REQUEST from whatever source to the specialist team. It ends when the PATIENT dies.

A recurrence of the original primary cancer at a secondary site is part of the same CANCER CARE SPELL.

If a PATIENT has another primary cancer this will be a new CANCER CARE SPELL with the following exceptions.

A patient may have many skin cancer Basal Cell Carcinomas diagnosed at the same time, or consecutively during follow-up, or by re-referral. All these skin cancer Basal Cell Carcinomas will be treated under one CANCER CARE SPELL.

For skin cancer Squamous Cell Carcinoma (this includes atypical fibroxanthoma, Merkel cell tumour and all epidermal cell derived invasive malignancies except basal cell carcinoma), most PATIENTS have a single lesion at presentation, but a significant number will get more primaries over a period of time. All these Squamous Cell Carcinomas will be treated under one CANCER CARE SPELL.

For each Kaposi's sarcoma, Malignant Melanoma and cutaneous lymphoma diagnosed there will be one CANCER CARE SPELL.

The CANCER CARE SPELL may only involve diagnostic procedures leading to a diagnosis, for example in cases where the patient refuses treatment, or it may include treatment and follow-up.

References:
National Cancer Dataset Version 2.1_ISB October 2002

 

This class is also known by these names:

Context	Alias
plural	CANCER CARE SPELLS