The STAR/HOP system: a newly proposed abbreviated descriptive clinical coding system for craniopharyngiomas

Craniopharyngiomas are complex and challenging tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) which require multidisciplinary and tailored management plans. An extensive variety of clinical presentations, treatment options, and patient outcomes exists. It is crucial to accurately and effectively distinguish the clinical status and the patient’s specific roadmap to ensure proper disease status identification, patient-tailored care, follow-up, doctor-doctor and doctor-patient communication, and research. The author proposes the four-tier STAR/HOP craniopharyngioma clinical coding system to facilitate case definitions, adequate reporting, and sound communication among neurosurgeons and other healthcare professionals. The new system utilizes symbols and conventions encompassing simple numerical tentative rules and relevant clinical concerning the tumor surgeries, adjuvant therapies, shunt systems, and access Ommaya devices with flexibility in giving extra information of shunt and Ommaya functionality, timing of radiation therapy, and different grades of tumor excision and recurrences as well. The HOP component provides a broad, yet simple description of hypothalamic, ophthalmological, and pituitary functions which are crucial to assess in each craniopharyngioma patient. Such a system could represent a new template for new clinical coding systems for brain tumors in general, and craniopharyngiomas in particular, and may eventually affect the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of brain tumors at some point. The system is easy to grasp, clinically practical, simple, and easy to communicate.