On May 21, 2018, the National Cancer Institute awarded Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center $43.7 million to continue tracking all incidences of cancer in Los Angeles County. Called the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program, the registry dates back nearly half a century and has improved the understanding, prevention and control of cancer, a disease that is among the leading causes of death worldwide.

“We are the first line of defense: We identify cancer trends and pave roads that lead to better cancer prevention and treatment,” said Dennis Deapen, director of the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program and a professor of clinical preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine.
“Without people like us collecting cancer data from a large, diverse population, cancer research primarily would be based on old, white men. That isn’t very useful for other ethnic and age groups because they have different genetic and environmental risk factors.”

The promised $43.7 million from the NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program will be spread over 10 years and will support cancer data collection.