Improving Cancer Survival by Understanding Racial/Ethnic Disparities

National Cancer Institute (NCI) Science Writers’ Seminar Series with the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) at Columbia University Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia

What: Each day, 3,400 Americans are diagnosed with cancer and another 1,500 die from the disease. The burden of cancer is often greater for the poor, for ethnic minorities, and for the uninsured.

Many ethnic minorities experience lower cancer survival rates than whites. For example, despite a lower breast cancer incidence, African American women have significantly worse survival rates from breast cancer than Caucasian women.

Differences in biological tumor types, timeliness of treatment, or lack of compliance with treatment regimens appear to influence outcomes.

Please join us for discussions about how NCI and the HICCC are working to reduce cancer health disparities through innovative programs that address prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Who: I. Bernard Weinstein, M.D. (HICCC) — HICCC Director Emeritus. Welcome

Alfred I. Neugut, M.D., Ph.D. (HICCC) — Racial/ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes

Dawn L. Hershman, M.D. (HICCC) — Cancer treatment disparities

Regina M. Santella, Ph.D. (HICCC) — Disparities and differences in tumor biology

Victor R. Grann, M.D., MPH (HICCC) — Community outreach programs; clinical trials

Harold Freeman, M.D. (NCI) — NCI’s Patient Navigator program

When: Wednesday, November 30, 2005, 8:30 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
Join us for a light breakfast at 8:30 a.m. Talks will begin at 9 a.m. A Q&A session will conclude the morning by 11:30 a.m.

*Tours will be offered of the Irving Cancer Research Center, a new 300,000 sq. ft. facility at Columbia University Medical Center, dedicated entirely to investigators conducting disease-specific research of many cancers — breast, colon, lung, prostate, gastric, pancreatic, brain, lymphoma and tumor immunology.

Where: Irving Cancer Research Center at the Columbia University Medical Center campus.

1130 St. Nicholas Avenue (at West 166th St., just east of Broadway), New York, NY 10032
Subway: 1, 9, A or C train to 168th St. From midtown Manhattan, the A train provides express service (20 minutes from Times Square). Buses: M-2, M-3, M-4, M-5 or M-100

How: To register for the press briefing, please contact Dorie Hightower or Ann Benner in the NCI Media Relations Branch at 301-496-6641 or at ncipressofficers@mail.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation’s Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

Contact Information

NCI Media Relations Branch

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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