Cancer death rates are continuing their decline, researchers announced last week, and the downswing is actually picking up steam.

The new data - published in the Annual Report to the Nation produced by NCI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society (ACS), and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries - show a 2.1-percent decrease in cancer mortality rates between 2002 and 2004, an approximate doubling of the 1.1-percent decline seen each year from 1993 to 2002.  Read more  

The ability to connect people, organizations, and data through information technology is critical to fulfilling NCI's mission and to taking advantage of the research opportunities offered by 21st century science. Launched in 2004, the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) was designed to be an information network that would allow the cancer research community to share data and knowledge and, in so doing, accelerate the discovery of new approaches to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Earlier this year, the 3-year pilot phase of caBIG was successfully completed. That success was marked by the achievement of several important goals, most notably the participation of more than 1,000 individuals from over 190 organizations, and its use in several potentially high-impact research projects.  Read more  

The NCI Cancer Bulletin is produced by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). NCI, which was established in 1937, leads the national effort to eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer. Through basic, clinical, and population-based biomedical research and training, NCI conducts and supports research that will lead to a future in which we can identify the environmental and genetic causes of cancer, prevent cancer before it starts, identify cancers that do develop at the earliest stage, eliminate cancers through innovative treatment interventions, and biologically control those cancers that we cannot eliminate so they become manageable, chronic diseases. For more information on cancer, call 1-800-4-CANCER or visit http://www.cancer.gov. NCI Cancer Bulletin staff can be reached at ncicancerbulletin@mail.nih.gov.