CAP PERT Update & Cancer Data Summit

A CAP Pathology Electronic Reporting (PERT) meeting was held in Chicago on Thursday, October 5 followed by a Cancer Data Summit on Friday, October 6, 2023, both of which preceded the CAP Annual Meeting.

Highlights From the PERT meeting

• 2023 Protocol Release and Mapping Updates– Quarter 4 Release is scheduled for December 13th and will include 14 protocols including NEW Autopsy, NEW Autopsy CNS Template, and a NEW Melanoma Biopsy and a NEW Melanoma Excision. (The Melanoma Biopsy v4.3.1.0 and Melanoma Excision v4.3.0.2 are both being retired). In addition, AJCC updates to Vulva and the 6 GI NET protocols will occur.
• 2024 Releases – Will include: NEW Conjunctival Melanoma, NEW Parathyroid, NEW Paraganglioma and Pheochromocytoma, and NEW Bone protocols. Release dates are scheduled for:
  • Quarter 1: NO RELEASE.
  • Quarter 2: June 19, 2024
  • Quarter 3: September 18, 2024
  • Quarter 4: December 11, 2024
• eCP to SNOMED Mapping Project – Dr. Scott Campbell, University of Nebraska, provided an update on this project and indicated that he felt they were complete with mapping and only had a few remaining questions for the committee.
• CAP Podcasts – also called CAPcasts have several sessions of interest specific to the cancer registry community. A small sampling of sessions that might be of interest to you:
  • October 13, 2023: Breast Cancer Awareness Month
  • October 20, 2023: How Pathologists Can Leverage AI to Improve Patient Care
  • November 14, 2023: Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month

Other updates and all the CAP Cancer Protocols can be found on the CAP Website.

Cancer Data Summit 

This year’s summit, “The Future of Cancer Data: Unlocking Insights with Pathology Reporting” was held in Chicago on October 6. Speakers ranged from patient advocate, Paula Kim, Founder, Translating Research Across Communities (TRAC) and co-founder of PANCAN to Dr. Peter Yu, Physician-in-Chief, Hartford Healthcare Cancer Institute and Past President, ASCO. In her presentation “Patient Journey: Pathology Data Accelerating Empowerment Through Education,” Ms. Kim spoke eloquently about the cancer journey through the eyes of a patient or in her case, her father’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer which led to her advocacy work. A key point she made was the importance of translating path reports (or any health-related reports) into plain language that a patient could understand, and she recommended involving patient advocates in improving patient understanding of their pathology reports. In his talk, “Cancer Collaborators: Partnering to Improve Care Utilizing Pathology Data and Cancer Reporting,” Dr. Peter Yu echoed the importance of having pathology reports in language patients can understand and spoke about the ways cancer data architecture can improve interoperability for everything that is downstream including the cancer registry and ultimately provide the best outcomes for patients.

Other presentations included “New Frontiers: Connecting Patient Care, Public Health, and Cancer Research,” by Dr. Jaime Auvil, NCI; “Data to Discovery: Novel Applications of Pathology Data,” a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Peter Yu with presenters: Michael Gurley, Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Brigette Rabel, British Columbia Provincial Health Services Authority, and Dr. Ross Simpson, Methodist Hospital/Park Nicollet Clinic; “Pathology Report to Public Health and Back: Supporting Cancer Research and Discoveries,” by Dr. Alison Van Dyke, NCI; and “Unlocking the Value of Molecular Profiling: The Power of the Integrated Pathology,” by Dr. Matthew Oberley, Caris Life Sciences.

Mignon Dryden is the NAACCR-designated Liaison to CAP PERT.