Book excerpt: The American Joint Committee on Cancer's Cancer Staging Manual is used by physicians throughout the world to diagnose cancer and determine the extent to which cancer has progressed. All of the TNM staging information included in this Sixth Edition is uniform between the AJCC (American Joint Committee on Cancer) and the UICC (International Union Against Cancer). In addition to the information found in the Handbook, the Manual provides standardized data forms for each anatomic site, which can be utilized as permanent patient records, enabling clinicians and cancer research scientists to maintain consistency in evaluating the efficacy of diagnosis and treatment. The CD-ROM packaged with each Manual contains printable copies of each of the book’s 45 Staging Forms.