Seer Program

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SEER PROGRAM

The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute is the most authoritative source of information on cancer incidence and survival in the United States. Established in 1973, SEER originally provided cancer incidence data for Connecticut, Iowa, New Mexico, Utah, and Hawaii, and for the metropolitan areas of Detroit and San Francisco-Oakland. Since then, a number of other areas have been added to the program, including the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Seattle, and Los Angeles; counties in Georgia; Native-American populations in Arizona and Alaska; and the states of New Jersey, Louisiana, Kentucky, and California.

SEER registries routinely collect data on cancer patients, demographics, primary tumor site, morphology, stage at diagnosis, first course of treatment, and follow-up for vital status. SEER data, publications, and resources are available at http://www.seer.cancer.gov.

Brenda K. Edwards

(see also: Cancer; Data Sources and Collection Methods; Demography; Epidemiology; National Institutes of Health; Vital Statistics )