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On the use and abuse of X in the TNM classification
Author(s) -
Greene Frederick L.,
Brierley James,
O'Sullivan Brian,
Sobin Leslie H.,
Wittekind Christian
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/cncr.20808
Subject(s) - medicine , stage (stratigraphy) , lymph node metastasis , lymph node , suffix , classification scheme , tnm staging system , metastasis , oncology , staging system , cancer , linguistics , information retrieval , computer science , paleontology , philosophy , biology
One frequent area of uncertainty in assigning proper staging categories is the use of the “X” suffix when assigned to the tumor (T), lymph node (N), or metastasis (M) categories of the TNM classification system. When X is used, patients ordinarily cannot be assigned a stage, e.g., Stage III. The objective of this communication was to clarify the use of X.