First Disease Free Start Date

Field Length:  8

Enter the month, day, and year on which the patient was first considered disease-free. Use all information available in the chart when making an evaluation. If it appears that the patient is disease-free, but no exact date is known, make an estimate.

The definition of disease-free status is related to the site of the cancer being studied. With solid tumors, the patient is considered disease-free when there is no reported clinical evidence of any residual tumor (i.e., the pathology report states that the margins are clear) and there is no evidence of cancer in any lymph nodes or metastatic sites. With leukemias, lymphomas, hematopoietic diseases, etc., complete remission is considered a disease-free status. When recording this information for the latter kinds of cases, enter a date only if the record indicates "remission" or "complete remission", leave blank if the record says only "partial remission" or "stable".