Increased public interest in health care issues has influenced scientific research. As shown in the preceding chapters of this report, Congress appropriated over $1.1 billion to the Department of Defense (DOD) between fiscal year 1992 (FY92) and FY99 for intramural and extramural grant programs directed toward research on breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, neurofibromatosis, Defense women’s health, and osteoporosis. In addition, Congress has directed the DOD to manage a number of targeted research initiatives. An outline of these programs follows.

——Coastal Cancer Control

In FY95, Congress appropriated $5.0M for Coastal Cancer Control. This money was directed through the Navy and used for the Charleston Naval Hospital to develop and implement a Coastal Cancer Control Program serving military dependents along coastal South Carolina.

——Computer Aided Diagnosis

In FY97, Congress appropriated $3.0M for Computer Aided Diagnosis. This money was awarded to the Naval Medical Research and Development Command for continuing ongoing Navy-sponsored computer aided diagnostic research that utilizes image enhancement and segmentation by adaptive multi-resolution/multi-orientation wavelet transform methods. These methods will generally be useful to the DOD in digital mammography, digital x-ray imaging, and teleradiology applications.

——Center for Prostate Disease Research

In FY99, Congress appropriated $7.5M to the Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR) at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The CPDR program has been devoted to the study of prostate cancer and disease in the U.S. military health care system. The CPDR program is multidisciplinary in nature. Research areas of focus include genetic alteration/novel gene discovery, functional genetics, androgen mechanisms, prostate cell biology, and preclinical models of gene therapy.

——Advanced Cancer Detection

Congress also appropriated $3.5M in FY97 to establish an Advanced Cancer Detection Center (ACDC). The goals of the ACDC include (1) expansion of screening and education systems for the public and health professionals, (2) examination of new means to identify early cancers, (3) refinement of telemedicine methodology for targeting remote populations, and (4) extension of work on defining early cellular changes in transformed cells for applications in early detection. The DOD Naval Medical Research and Development Command awarded a grant to the University of South Florida to establish an ACDC at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute. Funds are being used to create the infrastructure that links Moffitt and its programs to military personnel, dependents, and retired service members in order to conduct coordinated screening for cancer detection and treatment, train military cancer specialists, and develop improved cancer detection equipment and technology. In both FY98 and FY99, Congress appropriated an additional $3.5M for the ACDC.