The goals of the SEER Program are to:

  • Collect complete and accurate data on all cancers diagnosed among residents of geographic areas covered by SEER cancer registries.
  • Conduct a continual quality control and quality improvement program to ensure the collection of high quality data.
  • Periodically report on the cancer burden as it relates to cancer incidence and mortality, and patient survival overall and in selected segments of the population.
  • Identify unusual changes and differences in the patterns of occurrence of specific forms of cancer in population subgroups defined by geographic, demographic, and social characteristics.
  • Describe temporal changes in cancer incidence, mortality, extent of disease at diagnosis (stage), therapy, and patient survival as they may relate to the impact of cancer prevention and control interventions.
  • Monitor the occurrence of possible iatrogenic cancers, i.e., cancers that are caused by cancer therapy.
  • Collaborate with other organizations on cancer surveillance activities, including the CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries and North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)External Web Site Policy.
  • Serve as a research resource to the National Cancer Institute providing for the conduct of studies that address issues dealing with cancer prevention and control as well as Program and registry operations.
  • Provide research resources to the general research community including a research data file each year, and software to facilitate the analysis of the database.
  • Provide training materials and web-based training resources to the cancer registry community.