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Thomas C. Tucker, PhD, MPH

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thomas.tucker@uky.edu

Positions

  • Senior Director for Cancer Surveillance, Markey Cancer Center
  • Professor Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health

Biography and Education

Biography

Thomas C. Tucker, PhD, MPH, is the Senior Director for Cancer Surveillance at the University of Kentucky's Markey Cancer Center. For nearly 20 years he served as the Markey Cancer Center's Associate Director for Cancer Prevention and Control, Director of the Kentucky Cancer Registry, Principal Investigator for the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program, and Principal Investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) in Kentucky. He was the founding chair and is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Kentucky’s College of Public Health. He is an internationally recognized population scientist with more than 45 years of experience in cancer surveillance and cancer control research. Dr. Tucker was elected as one of two North American Representatives to serve on the International Association of Cancer Registries' Board of Directors and he is a member of the Advisory Board for CONCORD-2, an international study of cancer survival in 71 countries. He is a past President of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) and in 2002 he received NAACCR’s highest honor, the Calum Muir Award, for lifetime contributions to the science of cancer surveillance. His research is focused on disparities in the burden of lung, colorectal, breast and cervical cancer with an emphasis on rural and Appalachian populations. More recently he has been engaged in research using the population-based cancer registry as a Virtual Tissue Repository.

Selected Publications

Mix J, Saraiya M, Thompson T, Querec T, Greek A, Tucker T, Peters E, Lynch C, Hernandez B, Copeland G, Goodman M, Unger E. Prevalence of human papillomavirus genotypes in high-grade cervical precancer and invasive cervical cancer from cancer registries before and after vaccine introduction in the United States. Cancer. [E-Pub] https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.33582. July 21, 2021. Yuan Y , Van Dyke A , Petkov V , Hussey S , Moravec R, Altekruse S , Sandoval M; Cress R, MuellerL, Mogi A, Hernandez B , Selk F , Lynch C, Tucker T, Lynch A, Lefante C , Wu X, Sweeney C , Doherty J, Penberthy L . Pathology laboratory policies and procedures for releasing diagnostic tissue for cancer research. Arch Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. Vol 145, February 2021. Tucker T, Charlton M, Schroeder M, Jacob J, Tolle C, Evers M, Mullett T. Improving the quality of cancer care in community hospitals. Annals of Surgical Oncology, 28(2):632-638. February 2021. Johnson M, Tucker T, Chen Q, Huang B, DeSimone C, Miller R, Baldwin L, Fredericks T, Burgess B, Ueland F. Uterine corpus malignancies in Appalachia Kentucky: Incidence, survival, and related health disparities. South Med J, 113:29-36, 2020. Pravosud V, Vanderford N, Huang B, Tucker T, Arnold S. Exceptional survival among Kentucky stage IV non‐small cell lung cancer patients: Appalachian versus non‐Appalachian populations. Journal of Rural Health, doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12537, [Epub ahead of print] November 18, 2020. Larson K, Huang B, Chen Q, Tucker T, Schuh M, Arnold S, Kolesar J. EGFR testing and erlotinib use in non-small cell lung cancer patients in Kentucky. Plos One. 15(8): e02337790. H 15(8): e0237790. [E-Pub] https://doi.org/10.1371. August 18, 2020. Bhutiani N, Hicks A, Huang B, Chen Q, Tucker T, McMasters K, Ajkay N. Identifying factors influencing delays in breast cancer treatment in Kentucky following the 2014 Medicaid expansion. Journal of Surgical Oncology, Vol.121, No.8, 1191-1200, June 15, 2020. McNabb S, Harrison T, Albanes D…Tucker T, et al. Meta-analysis of 16 studies of the association of alcohol with colorectal cancer, Int. J. Cancer: 146, 861–873, 2019. Tucker T, Durbin E, McDowell J, Huang B. Unlocking the potential of population-based cancer registries. Cancer. Vol. 125, No. 2, pp 3729 – 3737, November 1, 2019. Gallaway M, Huang B, Chen Q, Tucker T, McDowell J, Durbin E, Stewart S, Tai E. Smoking and Smoking Cessation Among Persons with Tobacco and Non-Tobacco-Associated Cancers. Journal of Community Health. Vol. 44, 552-560, June 15, 2019. Gan T, Sinner H, Walling S, Chen Q, Huang B, Tucker T, Patel J, Evers M, Bhakta A. Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Colorectal Cancer Screening, Incidence, and Survival in Kentucky, Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Volume 228, Issue 4, Pages 342–353, April 2019. He C, Plattner R, Rangnekar V, Zhou B, Liu C, Stewart R, Huang B, Wang C, Tucker T. Potential protein markers for breast cancer recurrence: a retrospective cohort study. Cancer Causes & Control. Published online, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-018-1099-8, Nov. 2018. Hallowell B, Saraiya M, Thompson T, Unger E, Lynch C, Tucker T, et al. Population-based assessment of HPV genotype-specific cervical cancer survival: CDC Cancer Registry Sentinel Surveillance System. JNCI Cancer Spectrum. Vol. 2, No.3, pp 3729, 2018. Huang B, Pollock E, Zhu L, Athens J, Gangnon R, Feuer E, Tucker T. Ranking composite cancer burden indices for geographic regions: point and interval estimates. Cancer Causes and Control. Vol. 29:2, pp 279-287, February 2018. Rios J, Gosain R, Huang B, Oechsli M, McDowell J, Chen Q, Tucker T, Kloecker G. Treatment and outcomes of non-small-cell lung cancer patients with high comorbidity. Cancer Management and Research. 10: 1-9, 2018.