Role of the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Data in Population-based Cancer Surveillance Research

The SEER Program of the National Cancer Institute is a rich source of population-based historical and current surveillance data on cancer patients in the United States (US). Information is available on patient survival, demographics, primary tumor site, tumor morphology, stage at diagnosis, and first course of treatment.

SEER cancer registries cover 18 geographical areas in the US (representing 26% of the total US population) and their data are used to periodically report on the cancer burden as measured by incidence, prevalence, mortality, and patient survival. The SEER Program is considered the standard for data quality around the world due to its rigorous, ongoing quality control program consisting of frequent casefinding, recoding, and reliability studies.

Data on more than six million in situ and invasive cancer cases are currently in the SEER database and more than 350,000 new cases are added annually. A major goal of cancer surveillance is to identify unusual trends or differences in the patterns of occurrence of specific forms of cancer in population subgroups defined by geographic, demographic, and social characteristics.

SEER data are provided free of charge in a limited-use data file. A variety of SEER statistical software is available, including SEER*Stat, which aids in the analysis of the data and provides the mechanism for researchers to calculate statistics, obtain rates and trends, frequencies, survival statistics, advanced statistical topics, and county attribute data. Other SEER software allows for the conversion of one's own data file to a SEER*Stat readable format and to conduct analyses.