In the United States each year, roughly 1.3 million people are diagnosed with cancer—more than half live at least 5 years past diagnosis. These patients are at risk for bothersome symptoms that may diminish their quality of life, a situation compounded by

• An expanding and aging population with a growing disease burden and suffering due to malignancy
• A lag in scope and quality of scientific evidence on cancer symptom epidemiology and treatment

This is an urgent call for reliable data on the prevalence, severity, and treatment of cancer- and therapy-related symptoms, and the basis of our prospective research to investigate the following:

• Primary objective: describe the physical and psychological symptom prevalence, severity, and interference experienced by cancer patients over a 4- to 5-week period during outpatient follow-up at ECOG institutions
• Secondary objectives: explore the association between patient and provider perceptions of symptom severity, practice patterns for symptom interventions, and factors related to symptom relief; also, study the focus and scope of oncologist-selected interventions to improve symptom control