Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program

The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program collects and publishes data on cancer incidence and survival from population-based cancer registries in 22 U.S. geographic areas. SEER registries provide complete coverage for metropolitan regions and special populations whose data are reported to their respective state registries funded by CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries.

The SEER Program continues to—

  • Monitor the burden of cancer in the United States.
  • Provide statistics on cancer incidence and survival in the SEER coverage area, and mortality in the United States provided by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
  • Monitor cancer incidence trends in geographic and demographic population groups, including diverse racial and ethnic groups.
  • Provide detailed information on trends in the extent of disease at diagnosis, therapy, and patient survival.
  • Provide data for research.
  • Promote studies measuring progress in cancer control and etiology.
  • Provide specialty training in epidemiology, biostatistics, surveillance research, tumor registry methodology, operations, and management.
  • Respond to public concerns and inquiries on cancer.
  • Develop new statistical methods, models, and software for the analysis and presentation of national and small-area statistics.

The mortality data reported by SEER are provided by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The SEER Program issues a limited-use data set (formerly called the public use data file) for additional analyses by researchers and the public.

In addition to the data sets on the SEER website, NCI disseminates—

  • A public use interactive website of pre-calculated cancer incidence rates called SEER*Explorer.
  • A public use interactive tool to explore childhood, adolescent, and young adult cancer statistics called NCCR*Explorer.
  • Cancer statistics fact sheets.

For information about NCI’s additional tools and products, visit their Cancer Statistics page.