Interdisciplinary cooperation as a prerequisite for precise tumor documentation. Illustrated by an example of surgery for colorectal carcinoma

Current tumor management is increasingly founded on interdisciplinary cooperation. The main partners in cases of solid tumors are oncologic surgery, medical oncology, and radiotherapy, guided by pathology. The cooperative concept, particularly the individual strategy and selection of the most adequate approach, oriented on guidelines and therapeutic standards, depends on the quality of the involved components as well as personal abilities of the actors. In addition to the personal qualification, decision making depends on both tumor stage and completeness of tumor removal. In this point,the overall quality of the therapeutic concept is based on an interaction between the operating surgeon and clinical pathologist that had seldom been taken into consideration. The basic rules of their cooperation and quality-focused implementation regarding tumor dignity, stage, and R classification are discussed based on the example of colorectal carcinoma. In particular, those pitfalls in tumor documentation are emphasized, which may appear less relevant for each partner individually, but bear the risk of misinterpretation and therefore misleading conclusions.