To unravel the complex tapestry of cancer burden, researchers need comprehensive, easily accessible data, and that’s precisely what SCAN 360 delivers. SCAN 360 is a web-based platform that harnesses the power of big data and technology to give clinicians and researchers extensive information about cancer in Sylvester’s catchment area and beyond.
Established in 2016, the platform — proprietary to Sylvester— utilizes records from multiple sources to provide valuable information about cancer incidence in specific communities. It’s free, and anyone who navigates to the website can use it.
“SCAN 360 is critical to our mission,” said Erin Kobetz, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate director, community outreach and engagement at Sylvester and the John K. and Judy H. Schulte Senior Endowed Chair in Cancer Research. “It helps me monitor the catchment area, a requirement of our Cancer Center Support Grant, and identify communities with higher-than-expected disease burden. Sylvester’s outreach team then engages community partners to determine the best next steps for collaborative science.”
The site, a model for other National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers around the nation, can filter data by 18 cancer types, geography, ethnicity, gender, age and other factors to provide detailed graphics showing how cancer may be affecting people in a specific community. For example, in Coral Gables, Fla., breast cancer incidence for white women ages 20 to 64 is 101 per 100,000 people. For Hispanic women, it’s 83 per 100,000.
SCAN 360 also contains vital information about cancer risk and clinical factors, social determinants of health, cancer staging, risk behaviors, screening efforts, environmental factors, health insurance access and much more — an informational gold mine for researchers.
This ability to gather and filter detailed demographic information about cancer incidence is paying big dividends in research and community outreach, allowing Sylvester and other organizations to better focus their efforts.