Ongoing Collaborations: Comprehensive Cancer Centers

Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium sites all interact with Comprehensive Cancer Centers (CCC) funded by the National Cancer Institute, but the level of involvement varies. One site includes the Associate Director of the CCC on an advisory board to the BCSC, while another site includes the Associate Director as its Principal Investigator. Several sites use the BCSC resource as a data infrastructure for grants written with CCC investigators. Most of the PIs are CCC investigators, and most support the work of CCC investigators using their data resource. Examples of the latter include a Breast Cancer Spore and Breast Density Program Project at UCSF, a breast imaging project being developed through the School of Engineering and the Medical School at Dartmouth Hitchcock, and a project on omega-3 fatty acids and breast cancer developed jointly by Group Health in Seattle and the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. BCSC investigators may work with multiple cancer centers. As the richness of the data is more widely recognized, it is expected that the BCSC will further facilitate basic, epidemiologic, behavioral, and health services science in collaboration with Comprehensive Cancer Centers.