Dates and Facts

1900 – 1910	Progressive increase in the number of communications and articles on cancer at the Brazilian National Academy of Medicine.
1911	The medical journal Archivos Brasileiros de Medicina publishes a “permanent section on cancrum” run by physician Álvaro Ramos. This is the first editorial section for cancer articles only.
1919	Creation of the National Department of Public Health (DNSP). Establishment of the first cancer-related public health instance: the Leprosy, Venereal Diseases and Cancer Inspectorate.
1922	Opening of the Radium Institute of Belo Horizonte.
1929	Opening of the Dr. Arnaldo Cancer Institute, São Paulo.
1929	The Medical and Surgical Society of Rio de Janeiro organizes the Cancer Week, November 4-10, in association with the Brazilian National Academy of Medicine. This event attracted a huge number of physicians interested in the disease.
1930	Creation of the Ministry of Education and Public Health (MESP).
1935	1st Cancer Congress, Rio de Janeiro. Early propositions for organizing a national network againts cancer.
1937	The Ministry of Education and Public Health is re-designed, with the creation of the Cancer Center of the Federal District, the embryo of the present day National Cancer Institute of Brazil– INCA.
1938	Inauguration of the Cancer Center of the Federal District, at Estácio de Sá Hospital.
1941	Creation of the National Cancer Service - SNC.
1944	Approval of the SNC bylaws. The Cancer Center is turned into the Cancer Institute. The SNC includes the Cancer Institute, the Organization and Control section, and the Administrative Section. The Director of the Institute is Dr. Alberto Lima de Morais Coutinho.
1946	SNC’s offices are moved to Gaffrée-Guinle hospital.
1953	Creation of the Ministry of Health.
1954	Mário Kroeff replaced by Alberto Coutinho as director of the SNC.
1957	Inauguration of the Cancer Institute building, at Praça da Cruz Vermelha, Rio de Janeiro.
1961	Decree 50251/01 officially creates the National Cancer Institute of Brazil.
1968	Official launching of the National Campaign Against Cancer.
1969	INCA is handed over to the Rio de Janeiro Medical and Surgical School, leaving the orbit of the Ministry of Health.
1970	SNC becomes the National Cancer Division, by Decree 66523.
1971	INCA returns to be a Ministry of Health organ, according to Act 5734 of November 16, 1971, effective January 1st, 1972.
1978	The National Cancer Division becomes defunct, being replaced by the National Division on Chronic-Degenerative Diseases (DNDCD), a part of the Special Programs National Secretariat – SNEPS.
1980	INCA comes to be jointly managed by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Welfare.
1983	Regulation 92 transfers to INCA the activities that had been carried out by DNDCD.
1986	Establishment of the National Week to Fight Smoking.
1987	Launching of the Cancer Care Teaching Project (PIDAAC), with the goal of having Oncology as a standing subject in Brazilian public and private universities.
1988	Establishment of the National Cancer-Fight Day.
1988	Establishment of the Therapeutic Oncology Service, INCA’s palliative care unit, which became the Cancer Hospital IV in 2004.
1991	Establishment of Pro-Onco, the Cancer Control Programs Coordination.
1991	INCA takes over the Oncology Hospital.
1991	New regulation of the Ministry of Health, by which INCA became an advisory, executive, and coordinating organ of the National Policy for Cancer Prevention and Control. This status was maintained by decrees of 1998 and 2000.
1991	Establishment of the Ary Frauzino Foundation for Cancer Control and Prevention (FAF), a private philantropic social care organization, with autonomy in regards to assets, management and finances.
1992	Establishment of INCA’s Advisory Board (Consinca), in charge of drafting cancer-care regulations for the Public Health System – SUS, through the development of concepts and processes, in discussions held in weekly meetings.
1992	INCA takes over the Oncology Hospital and Luiza Gomes de Lemos Gynecology Center (1992), which later became the Cancer Hospital II and Cancer Hospital III, respectively.
1993	Establishment of the Ronald McDonald House through a partnership between INCA, McDonald’s and AACN.
1996	Launching of the national cervix cancer prevention and control program, the Programa Viva Mulher.
1998	INCA hosts the 17th World Cancer Congress, organized by the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), in Rio de Janeiro, August 23 - 28.
1999	Establishment of the Board of Bioethics (ConBio-INCA), to discuss moral and philosophical issues from cancer care within the Brazilian sanitation policy framework, in order to guide cancer prevention and care-delivery measures.
2003	Political-administrative crisis in INCA.
2003	Establishment of INCA’s participative and shared management process.
2004	Launching of the National Bone Marrow Donation Campaign.
2005	Opening of the National Tumor Bank.
2006	Focusing the new National Cancer Control Policy launched in 2005, which considers cancer a public health problem, in compliance with WHO recommendation, INCA starts developing a Cancer Control Network, where governmental and non-governmental work has a common purpose: to reduce cancer incidence and mortality, and to ensure the best possible quality of life to patients undergoing treatment.
2007	INCA commemorates its 70th anniversary and starts planning a new campus.

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