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The DES Follow-Up Study investigates the long-term health consequences associated with exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES). Since 1992, the National Cancer Institute, in collaboration with research centers throughout the United States has been conducting the DES Follow-Up Study of more than 21,000 mothers, daughters, and sons.




* The DES Action and DES Cancer Network links are not associated with NCI.
  

STUDY UPDATE: Women exposed to DES face increased cancer risk

Dr. Robert Hoover, Director of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program at the National Cancer Institute and a Principal Investigator on the DES Follow-up Study, has conducted a comprehensive review of the health outcomes of daughters whose mothers were given DES during pregnancy. Dr. Hoover and his colleagues' findings are published in the paper "Adverse Health Outcomes in Women Exposed In Utero to Diethylstilbestrol" that appears in the October 6, 2011 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. Please click Press Release to read about this important research and click NEJM to read the complete paper.

Click the following links to hear Dr. Hoover discussing The DES Story: Lessons Learned and to read the NCI’s Cancer Bulletin about After DES: Tracking the Harms of a Prenatal Drug Exposure.

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In Memoriam - Dr. Raymond H. Kaufman

As participants in our study center in Houston may know, Dr. Raymond Kaufman, who was a Principal Investigator with the NCI DES Follow-up Study at the Methodist Research Institute, and previously at the Baylor College of Medicine, died on November 25, 2010. Not only was he central to the current follow-up study, but he was one of the first and most important physician investigators to address the consequences of DES exposure from the time that they were first identified. Continue   

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A Significant Anniversary in DES Research

April 22, 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of the paper written in 1971 by Dr. Arthur Herbst and colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine about the association of women exposed to DES before birth and the increased risk of developing a rare form of vaginal cancer called clear cell adenocarcinoma (CCA). This discovery formed the impetus for continued and ongoing research on the long term health effects of DES exposure. Continue   

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2011 Questionnaire Coming this Fall

We are asking again for your continued support of the DES Follow-up Study. Your participation in the 2011 round of follow-up will help us to continue to identify health concerns resulting from DES exposure and to make recommendations for improved medical care. When this round of follow-up begins in the fall, you can either respond to the questionnaire by mail or complete it online through a secure page that will be added to this web site. Continue   

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