Patients as biomedical researchers.

Advancements in biomedical research are highly dependent on critical thinking and problem solving. When quality of life and life-saving interventions rely on biomedical discoveries, every perspective is valuable. Therefore, a key contributor to the progress of health-related research is missing when patient representation is deficient in the biomedical research workforce.

Development, Feasibility, and Small-Scale Implementation of a Web-Based Prognostic Tool-Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Cancer Survival Calculator.

Background: Population datasets and the Internet are playing an ever-growing role in the way cancer information is made available to providers, patients, and their caregivers. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Cancer Survival Calculator (SEER*CSC) is a Web-based cancer prognostic tool that uses SEER data, a large population dataset, to provide physicians with highly valid, evidence-based prognostic estimates for increasing shared decision-making and improving patient-provider communication of complex health information.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop, test, and implement SEER*CSC.

Implementation science in cancer prevention and control: a decade of grant funding by the National Cancer Institute and future directions.

Background: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has supported implementation science for over a decade. We explore the application of implementation science across the cancer control continuum, including prevention, screening, treatment, and survivorship.

Methods: We reviewed funding trends of implementation science grants funded by the NCI between 2000 and 2012.

Health-care utilization by prognosis profile in a managed care setting: using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Cancer Survival Calculator SEER*CSC.

Background: Accurate estimation of the probability of dying of cancer versus other causes is needed to inform goals of care for cancer patients. Further, prognosis may also influence health-care utilization. This paper describes health service utilization patterns of subgroups of prostate cancer and colorectal cancer (CRC) patients with different relative probabilities of dying of their cancer or other conditions.

The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Cancer Survival Calculator SEER*CSC: validation in a managed care setting.

Background: Nomograms for prostate and colorectal cancer are included in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Cancer Survival Calculator, under development by the National Cancer Institute. They are based on the National Cancer Institute's SEER data, coupled with Medicare data, to estimate the probabilities of surviving or dying from cancer or from other causes based on a set of patient and tumor characteristics. The nomograms provide estimates of survival that are specific to the characteristics of the tumor, age, race, gender, and the overall health of a patient.

The Cancer Survival Query System: making survival estimates from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program more timely and relevant for recently diagnosed patients.

Background: Population-based cancer registries that include patient follow-up generally provide information regarding net survival (ie, survival associated with the risk of dying of cancer in the absence of competing risks). However, registry data also can be used to calculate survival from cancer in the presence of competing risks, which is more clinically relevant.

Methods: Statistical methods were developed to predict the risk of death from cancer and other causes, as well as natural life expectancy if the patient did not have cancer based on a profile of prognostic factors including characteristics of the cancer, demographic factors, and comorbid conditions.