California Cancer Reporting System Standards Volume I: Abstracting and Coding Procedures for Hospitals
For cases diagnosed January 1, 2010 and forward, or following installation of CSv2 software, dates transmitted between facility registries and central registries changed to improve the interoperability or communication of cancer registry data with other electronic record systems. Registry software may display dates in the traditional manner or in the interoperable format.
Traditional dates are displayed in MMDDCCYY form, with 99 representing unknown day or month portions, and 99999999 representing a completely unknown date. In traditional form, some dates also permit 88888888 or 00000000 for special meaning.
Interoperable dates are displayed in CCYYMMDD form, with the unknown portions of the date filled with blank spaces. If a date is entirely blank, an associated date flag is used to explain the missing date. An allowable date must contain the year.
Consult your software vendor for specific data entry instructions.
Description |
Traditional Date |
Interoperable Date |
Date Flag |
Full date known |
MMDDCCYY |
CCYYMMDD |
Blank |
Month and year known |
MM99CCYY |
CCYYMMbb |
Blank |
Year only known |
9999CCYY |
CCYYbbbb |
Blank |
Unknown date |
99999999 |
bbbbbbbb |
10, 11, 12, or 15* |
b= blank
* Allowable date flag values
Refer to the Date Flag Guide for the allowable values for each date flag field.