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National Cancer Institute
National Cancer Institute
Organizational Mission/Goals
The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) overall mission is to
conduct and support research, training, health information dissemination,
and other programs with respect to the cause, diagnosis, prevention, and
treatment of cancer and the continuing care of cancer patients and the
families of cancer patients.
About the National Cancer Institute
NCI is a component of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), one of eight agencies that compose the Public
Health Service (PHS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
NCI, established under the National Cancer Act of 1937, is the Federal
Government's principal agency for cancer research and training. The
National Cancer Act of 1971 broadened the scope and responsibilities of NCI and created the National Cancer Program. Over the years,
legislative amendments have maintained NCI authorities and
responsibilities and added new information dissemination mandates as well
as a requirement to assess the incorporation of state-of-the-art cancer
treatments into clinical practice.
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Partnership Activities
CDC has an interagency agreement with the NIH and
NCI. The purpose of this agreement is to facilitate interagency
collaborations around research and programmatic activities. Below are
examples of CDC collaborations.
Cancer Surveillance
CDC and NCI have established a formal collaboration
between NCI's surveillance research program, Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End
Results (SEER) and CDC's National Program of
Cancer Registries (NPCR). This collaboration has allowed a more coordinated
national cancer surveillance effort that builds upon and strengthens the
existing infrastructure, improves the availability of high quality data
for measuring the nation's cancer burden, and advances the capacity for
surveillance research.
United States Cancer Statistics: 1999 Incidence is a
joint publication of the CDC and NCI, in collaboration with the North American Association of Central Cancer
Registries (NAACCR). This
report, the first set of official federal cancer incidence statistics from
each state that meets high-quality data standards, was published in
November, 2002, and a new release is scheduled for November, 2003.
CDC, NAACCR, NCI, and ACS collaborates to produce the Annual Report to
the Nation on the Status of Cancer, an annual publication
that began in 1998. The 2003 edition was released in September, 2003,
with a special section about the uses of surveillance data for cancer
prevention and control.
CDC is collaborating with NCI to collect, analyze, and
present data on cancer prevention and control practices of a nationally
representative sample of 36,000 U.S. adults interviewed as part of the
year 2000 National Health Interview Survey.
CDC and NCI also collaborate by working together on
various committees of NAACCR. For more
information on NAACCR, please see NAACCR’s Partner Profile.
CDC and NCI are members of the National Coordinating
Council on Cancer Surveillance (NCCCS), along with the American Cancer
Society (ACS), the American College of Surgeons (ACoS),
NAACCR, the
National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA), and other cancer-related
organizations. This working consortium provides a forum and opportunities
for member organizations to collaborate on cancer surveillance and
registration issues.
If you are interested in learning more about these organizations, please
access their profiles on the Partner Profile page.
Breast and Ovarian Cancer
CDC supports an NCI study on ovarian cancer screening
study that seeks to evaluate the use of a protocol that tests women who
are at high risk of ovarian cancer because of genetic susceptibility. The study utilizes, among other things, the Breast and
Ovarian Cancer Family Registry, another project that receives support from
CDC and NCI. The Registry is a large international resource for the
discovery of new genes that play a role in breast and cervical cancer, and
their characterization. CDC funding will support mutational analysis of
the breast cancer genes named BRCA1 and BRCA2, the results of which are
likely to have direct relevance for clinicians and public health
practitioners.
The CDC provides additional support to the NCI-funded Long Island Breast Cancer Study
Project, a multidisciplinary effort to investigate whether environmental
factors are responsible for breast cancer in New York and Connecticut. The
Geographic Information System for Health (GIS-H) provides researchers with
a new, unique tool to investigate potential relationships between
environmental exposures and risk for breast cancer.
Other Activities
NCI is leading an effort to identify a core set of cancer
quality measures for use in research, guidelines, surveillance, and other
arenas. Funds from the CDC will be used to support the identification of
core measures of the quality of prostate cancer care.
CDC and NCI are the designated leads and managers for Healthy People
2010 Cancer Goals and Objectives. Healthy People 2010, the prevention
agenda for the Nation, is a statement of national health objectives
designed to identify the most significant preventable threats to health
and to establish national goals to reduce these threats. As co-leaders in
the cancer area of Health People 2010, CDC and NCI are responsible for
undertaking activities to move the Nation toward achieving the year 2010
goals and for reporting progress on the focus area objectives over the
course of the decade.
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Contact Information
NCI Public Inquiries Office
Suite 3036A
6116 Executive Boulevard, MSC8322
Bethesda, MD 20892-8322
Toll-free: 800-4-CANCER (800-422-6237)
http://www.cancer.gov
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