Tehran University of Medical Sciences Basic & Clinical Cancer Research 2228-6527 15 1 2024 01 13 51 62 Mohammadreza Mobinizadeh National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Rajabali Daroudi Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran; Iran. Sara Mohammadi Department of Health Management, School of Public Health, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, Azin Nahvijou Cancer Research Center, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, Kazem Zendehdel Cancer Research Center, Cancer Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, 2023 08 16 2023 10 09 IntroductionNational cmprehensive cancer control programs combat cancer through different measures, including primary prevention, early detection, treatment, and palliative and supportive care. Among the others, early detection programs seem to be a promising intervention and lead to lower cancer mortality. We define research priorities for the early detection of cancers in Iran. Methods We applied the multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) tools using three key attributes, including "5-year prevalence", "mortality to incidence ration as severity of disease," and "economic burden," to ranked different cancers for research priorities. The priorities were ranked based on four scenarios based on the weighting of the attributes. We also used the differences in the 5-year survival between localized and advanced tumors as the effect of early detection and incorporated it as the decision rule into the priority-setting model. Results Gastric cancer and cancers of the brain and nervous system ranked first in all the proposed scenarios. The most and least 5-year survival differences between localized and advanced cancers were observed for the kidney (80.5%) and the brain (3.3%) cancers. The top 10 priorities for early cancer detection in Iran were gastric, prostate, breast, lung, colorectal, ovarian, kidney, bladder, and cervical cancers. Conclusion We used a quantitative method and demonstrated the priority areas for research in the early detection of cancer in Iran. Researchers and government may use these results to optimize their research strategies for cancer prevention in Iran.  https://bccr.tums.ac.ir/index.php/bccrj/article/view/489