The PreCancer Atlas (PCA)

Reproduced from https://visualsonline.cancer.gov/details.cfm?imageid=11474. Early detection offers a better chance of saving lives from cancer. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) supports research to improve cancer detection in its early stages, when it may be most treatable, and to accurately assess how likely it is for a precancerous growth to progress to life-threatening disease. The PreCancer Atlas (PCA) of the NCI envisages a histological and multi-omic mapping strategy in time and space to provide detailed molecular, cellular, and structural characterization of premalignant lesions and how they evolve to invasive cancers. The PCA will result in a paradigm shift in our knowledge of events initiating carcinogenesis, which may also be relevant to understanding pathogenesis related to exposure to carcinogens. It will also develop a greater understanding of the biological underpinnings of how premalignant lesions transition to invasive cancers, will help identify largely unknown molecular mechanisms operating in the clinically and microscopically occult phase of human carcinogenesis, and open unprecedented opportunities for the development of effective strategies for the early detection and prevention of cancers. Thus, the PCA represents more than an incremental advance in the field and will generate data that may change the standards of practice in oncology.