A preliminary list of tumors for TCGA to study was generated by compiling incidence and survival statistics from the SEER Cancer Statistic website. In addition, U.S. current “Standard of Care” was considered when choosing the top 25 tumor types, as TCGA is targeting tumor types where resection prior to adjunct therapy is the standard of care. Availability of samples also plays a critical role in determining which tumor types to study and the order in which tumor projects are started. The more common the tumor is, the more likely that samples will be accrued quickly, resulting in common tumor types, such as colon, lung and breast cancer becoming the first tumor types entered into the project, before rare tumor types.