The National Toxicology Program (NTP), established in 1978, is an interagency program within the Public Health Service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its activities are executed through a partnership of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the Food and Drug Administration (primarily at the National Center for Toxicological Research), and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (part of the National Institutes of Health), where the program is administratively located. NTP offers a unique venue for the testing, research, and analysis of agents of concern to identify toxic and biological effects, provide information that strengthens the science base, and inform decisions by health regulatory and research agencies to safeguard public health. NTP also works to develop and apply new and improved methods and approaches that advance toxicology and better assess health effects from environmental exposures.

The Report on Carcinogens Monograph series began in 2012. Report on Carcinogens Monographs present the cancer hazard evaluations of environmental agents, substances, mixtures, or exposure circumstances (collectively referred to as “substances”) under review for the Report on Carcinogens. The Report on Carcinogens is a congressionally mandated, science-based, public health document that provides a cumulative list of substances that pose a cancer hazard for people in the United States. Substances are reviewed for the Report on Carcinogens to (1) be a new listing, (2) reclassify the current listing status, or (3) be removed.

NTP evaluates cancer hazards by following a multistep process and using established criteria to review and integrate the scientific evidence from published human, experimental animal, and mechanistic studies. General instructions for the systematic review and evidence integration methods used in these evaluations are provided in the Handbook for the Preparation of Report on Carcinogens Monographs. The handbook’s instructions are applied to a specific evaluation via a written protocol. The evaluation’s approach as outlined in the protocol is guided by the nature, extent, and complexity of the published scientific information and tailored to address the key scientific issues and questions for determining whether the substance is a potential cancer hazard and should be listed in the Report on Carcinogens. Draft monographs undergo external peer review before they are finalized and published.

The Report on Carcinogens Monographs are available free of charge on the NTP website and cataloged in PubMed, a free resource developed and maintained by the National Library of Medicine (part of the National Institutes of Health). Data for these evaluations are included in the Health Assessment and Workspace Collaborative. Information about the Report on Carcinogens is also available on the NTP website.

For questions about the monographs, please email NTP or call 984-287-3211.