Features

The Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities seeks to integrate studies across NCI research divisions in order to identify scientific and policy areas that provide opportunities to reduce cancer health disparities. In addition, the Center supports investigations to define and monitor disparities; develop and implement new policy, community and clinical interventions, and evaluate their impact; and expand minority participation, both as investigators and as patients, in health disparities research and clinical trials. Current initiatives illustrate the central importance of the Center's work.

The Community Networks Program expands upon the highly successful Special Populations Networks program to reduce cancer disparities through community-based participatory cancer education, training, and research among racial and ethnic minorities and underserved populations. Interventions include cancer prevention activities such as proven approaches for quitting smoking, increasing healthy eating and physical activity, and early detection and treatment of breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers.

The Patient Navigator Research Program represents a new approach to providing individualized assistance to patients, survivors, and their families. The Program places patients in contact with trained health care workers - or "navigators" who assist those in need of cancer care services. The overall goal of this program is to develop innovative patient navigator interventions designed to decrease the time between a cancer-related abnormal finding, definitive diagnosis, and delivery of quality standard cancer care services.

Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer

First issued in 1998, this publication is a collaborative effort among the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. It provides updated information on cancer rates and trends in the United States. NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results databases are a major source of information for this publication.

Cancer Progress Report

This is a biannual NCI publication about our Nation's progress against cancer, including prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, life after cancer, and end of life. The information is gathered through a collaborative effort with other key agencies and groups, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society. The report was first issued in 2001 and will be updated in late 2005. The 2003 update is available only online.

Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)

The NCI SEER program currently collects and publishes cancer incidence and survival data from 14 population-based cancer registries and three supplemental registries covering approximately 26 percent of the U. S. population. The program is the only comprehensive source of population-based information in the United States that includes stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis and survival rates within each stage. The mortality data reported by SEER are provided by the National Center for Health Statistics and cover the entire U. S. population.

Cancer Mortality Maps and Graphs

The Cancer Mortality Maps and Graph Web Site provides interactive maps, graphs (accessible to the blind and visually impaired), text, tables, and figures showing geographic patterns and time trends of cancer death rates from 1950 to 1994, for more than 40 cancers. Go to cancer.gov/atlasplus.

The Nation's Progress in Cancer Research

This annual NCI publication highlights recent scientific, technological, and programmatic advances resulting from NCI-supported programs. First published to highlight achievements in 2003, the latest report is available online (cancer.gov/nci-annual-report).

NCI Cancer Bulletin

The NCI Cancer Bulletin is a weekly publication available online from NCI. It provides updates on NCI activities, the research and clinical trials funded by the Institute, and other activities of the United States and international cancer communities.

Phase I trials are studies involving small numbers of patients to evaluate how new drugs should be given (by mouth, injected into the blood, or injected into the muscle), how often, and at what dose level.

Phase II trials continue to test the safety and efficacy of drugs, usually focusing on how effective they are for specific types of cancer.

Phase III trials test new drugs, new combinations of drugs, or new surgical procedures in comparison to the current standard. Phase III trials generally enroll larger numbers of people and are frequently conducted at multiple locations - e.g., doctors' offices, clinics, and Cancer Centers.

Several large-scale cancer prevention trials have been made possible through the Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP) supported by NCI. Indeed, the first cancer prevention drug, tamoxifen, might never have reached patients without the CCOP network that conducted the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial, the study on which the approval was based. The trial tested the efficacy of tamoxifen in preventing breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease. Another CCOP trial, the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, evaluated finasteride as a prostate cancer prevention drug.

The CCOP network remains a strong partner in ongoing studies as well. The Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR) compares raloxifene with tamoxifen in breast cancer prevention. Initial resultsfrom STAR are expected in 2006. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) is evaluating the supplements to prevent prostate cancer. Results from SELECT should be available in 2013. A perhaps under appreciated component of the CCOP is its support to symptom management trials. These trials may not garner headlines, but their importance in developing interventions to reduce side effects of treatment such as nausea and mucositis is critical.