Our Heritage
The origins of NSABP (National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project) trace back to 1957, when a team of 23 surgeons pooled their talents to develop a better understanding of breast cancer.
Since inception in 1957, the NSABP Foundation has designed and led myriad clinical trials pioneering new standards for treating breast and colorectal cancer.
- Breast Cancer
- First to prove the effectiveness of adjuvant therapy for women with operable breast cancer, ushering in the age of precision medicine
- Demonstrated the merit of breast-conserving measures versus previous standard radical mastectomy
- Demonstrated effectiveness of radiation therapy in reducing the occurrence of cancer in the breast
- Led world’s first breast cancer chemoprevention trial, with tamoxifen reducing invasive cancer by 49%
- Lessened necessity to perform full axillary dissection with the use of sentinel node biopsy in breast cancer patients
- Established the benefit of neoadjuvant therapy for locally-advanced breast cancer
- Proved addition of the monoclonal antibody Herceptin to standard therapy reduced breast cancer mortality by 39%
- Colorectal Cancer
- Proved addition of oxaliplatin to standard treatment improved disease-free survival of colorectal cancer; the first advancement with colon cancer in a decade
- Established the standard of care for total neoadjuvant therapy for locally-advanced colorectal cancer
- Validated the role of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancer
- First to use circulating tumor DNA as an adjuvant chemotherapy decision tool for patients with early stage colon cancer
Our Expertise
Our Principal Physicians and Executive Team lead a supremely talented team who closely collaborate with our network of 500+ member sites to conduct the research that improves the outcome for breast and colorectal cancer patients.
The NSABP Biospecimen Bank houses specimens from more than 87,000 patients. It serves as an open resource to the scientific community for further research into prognostic or predictive tests.
Our Vision
Motivation for the Foundation and its supporting networks remains directly in line with those of the founding physicians from the 1950s. We continue to leverage our unique capabilities to build a better understanding of cancer, and develop advancements to improve the standard of care for those diagnosed with these debilitating diseases.