Garnet Anderson, PhD
Senior Vice President and Director
Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutch
Fred Hutch 40th Anniversary Endowed Chair
Fred Hutch
Dr. Garnet Anderson is a biostatistician and clinical trialist who focuses on chronic disease prevention and women's health. She is best known for her leadership role in the Women’s Health Initiative, a national effort to test methods to reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and fractures related to osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. In 2002, she and her WHI colleagues reported that menopausal estrogen-plus-progestin therapy increased the risk of breast cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke and blood clots. These findings led to a rapid reduction in use of these hormones. Subsequent analyses led by Hutch colleagues estimated these changes prevented 126,000 breast cancer diagnoses and saved approximately $35.2 billion in direct medical expenses in the U.S. alone over 10 years after the trial. As principal investigator of the Fred Hutch-based WHI Clinical Coordinating Center, she oversees the integration of many different studies within this large program. One of these that she also leads is Life and Longevity After Cancer (LILAC), a program to examine late- and long-term effects of cancer and its treatment among 13,000 aging cancer survivors. She also serves as a statistician with the SWOG Statistical Center and has contributed to local efforts to develop and evaluate prevention and screening methods for ovarian cancer.
For questions or additional information:
LeaEllen Ren
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
1100 Fairview Ave. N., M3-A410
P.O. Box 19024
206.667.2923
Email: lren@whi.org
Other Appointments & Affiliations
Affiliate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, University of WashingtonAffiliate Professor, Department of Biostatistics
University of Washington
Principal Investigator, WHI Clinical Coordinating Center
Women's Health Initiative
Education
University of Washington, 1989, PhD (Biostatistics)
State University of New York at Binghamton, 1983, MS (Mathematics)
Research Interests
Clinical Trials
Chronic Disease Prevention
Women’s Health
Current Studies
Women’s Health Initiative Extension Study — long term follow-up of the WHI prevention trials and observational study cohorts (G Anderson, PI)
LILAC (Life and Longevity After Cancer) — Cancer Survivorship Cohort in the Women’s Health Initiative (G Anderson, mPI, with B Caan and E Paskett)
COSMOS (Cocoa Supplements and Multivitamins Outcomes Study): a randomized trial testing the preventive effects of these dietary supplements on cardiovascular disease and cancer risk (J Manson, PI)
Prospective Comparative Effectiveness Trial for Malignant Bowel Obstruction: A SWOG study comparing surgical and non-surgical approaches to management of MBO (R Krouse, PI).
Early detection of ovarian cancer through epigenetic factors in the WHI (J Genkinger, PI)
"The challenge of prevention is that those saved by an intervention do not know it."
— Dr. Garnet Anderson