On Jul. 24, 2001, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced the launch of the largest-ever prostate-cancer prevention study, a 12-year initiative that will involve 32,400 men in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The study sought to determine whether vitamin E and the trace element selenium can protect against prostate cancer, the most common form of malignancy, after skin cancer, in men.

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center houses the group that will oversee data analysis for this massive international effort, called the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial, or SELECT.

Local study participants were recruited through Northwest Prostate Institute, Puget Sound Cancer Centers (two locations: Seattle and Edmonds), Swedish Cancer Institute, VA Puget Sound Health Care System and Virginia Mason Medical Center. Participants also were enrolled at clinical sites in Spokane and Tacoma.

Study investigators hoped to recruit all the study participants during the first five years of the trial so that each man can be followed for at least seven years.

A network of 400 research sites were recruiting participants for the study, all of which belong to a consortium of cancer-care centers and physicians known as the Southwest Oncology Group, or SWOG. The Hutchinson Center’s Public Health Sciences Division houses the SWOG Statistical Center, which designed the statistical structure of the study and will lead the data management and analysis effort.