Could someone please direct me to where in any of our Standard Setter's
Manuals there is a rule/guideline or just a discussion on how to stage
pleural effusions depending on whether they are ipsilateral,
contralateral or bilateral to the lung cancer prim site in question.

Most references in the manuals refer to pleural effusion, nos or
pleural effusion, malign and do not distinguish laterality, but it
seems that for staging ipsi is t4 and bi or contra is M1, but if it is
not documented to do it that way somewhere, then how will everybody do
it the same way. I have been doing abstracting for over 16 years and
cannot remember reading about this anywhere.


I have already submitted this question to I&R and was told to look at
the AJCC Staging Manual,6th edition, page 175, but do not see anything
there about this.