The study is funded by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

• Steven Katz, MD, MPH; Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil; and Christopher Friese, RN, PhD, from the University of Michigan
• Kevin Ward, PhD, MPH, from Emory University
• Ann Hamilton, PhD, MA, from the University of Southern California
• Monica Morrow, MD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
• Allison Kurian, MD, MSc, from Stanford University

Women are selected for participation through SEER, the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program. SEER is the leading source of information on cancer incidence in the United States and works to provide this information to reduce the burden of cancer among the population.

Ultimately, around 5,000 women will participate in the study, including 2,500 from Georgia and 2,500 from Los Angeles County.

Selected participants are mailed a survey about their breast cancer care experience and are asked to complete and return it by mail in a pre-paid envelope. After we get individual surveys back, the study teams combine all data into protected datasets in which individual respondents cannot be identified.

The results from this study will be shared with the people who care most about women’s treatment for breast cancer, including researchers, doctors, cancer patients, and patient advocacy groups. Researchers hope to use the information from this study to improve the quality of care that women with breast cancer receive.

We began sending surveys to eligible women diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2013 and expect to continue until July 2015.  We will survey doctors between February and July 2015.

• Los Angeles residents:
  Please call toll free at 1-855-872-1140
  or e-mail iCanCare@med.usc.edu
• Georgia residents:
  Please call toll free at 1-855-458-8788
  or e-mail iCan.Care@emory.edu

Taking part in this study is voluntary. You may choose not to be in this study. If you decide to be in this study, you are free to change your mind and stop at any time with no consequences. You will not lose any benefits to which you are entitled.

If you have questions about your rights while taking part in this study, or you have concerns or suggestions and you want to talk to someone other than the researchers about the study:

• Los Angeles residents:
  Please contact the University of Southern California Institutional Review Board:
  Health Sciences Campus, General Hospital, Suite 4700, 1200 N. State St.
  Los Angeles, CA 90033
  323-223-2340
  irb@usc.edu
• Georgia residents:
  Please contact the Emory University Institutional Review Board:
  1599 Clifton Rd NE, 5th Floor
  Atlanta, GA 30322
  404-712-0720
  irb@emory.edu

Los Angeles residents: Your name was obtained from the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program, a member of the California Cancer Registry. This program was created by the California Legislature in response to public concern that not enough was being done to find the causes of and cures for cancer. Every cancer diagnosed in California is required by law to be reported to the California Department of Public Health, which is responsible for the registry. Information on individuals with cancer can only be released for research purposes to qualified researchers who have obtained approval for the study from a federally approved Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects and have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of the information they collect.

Georgia residents: Your name was obtained from the Georgia Center for Cancer Statistics. This organization serves as the agent of the state of Georgia Department of Public Health for conducting cancer surveillance. Every cancer diagnosed in Georgia is required by law to be reported to the Georgia Cancer Registry. This registry was designed to track the cancer burden among Georgia residents and to support studies about cancer to improve public health. Information on individuals with cancer can only be released for research purposes to qualified researchers who have obtained approval for the study from a federally approved Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects and have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of the information they collect.

Doctors: You have been selected for this study because you treated one or more of the women in our study. Only doctors of the women in are study are being asked to participate.

If you do not want to answer a certain question, you may write “skip” next to it.

All of the information in the survey is kept strictly confidential. Your name does not appear anywhere on the survey and individual patients and doctors can never be identified from any results of the study. We also keep surveys in locked file cabinets and computer files protected by passwords.

Only doctors who have treated the women with breast cancer in our study are asked to participate.

Doctors are mailed a general survey about their opinions on decision making and current diagnostic and treatment approaches in breast cancer.  They are asked to complete this survey and return it by mail in a pre-paid envelope. After we get these surveys back, the study teams combine all data into protected datasets in which individual respondents cannot be identified.

Doctors are never asked about their treatment of specific patients.

No. We never share the names of participating women with the doctors taking part in this study.  In addition, we never share individual patient survey responses with the doctors. Your survey responses are kept completely confidential and are combined with the responses of other patients.