PORTLAND, OR - Researchers from SWOG, a cancer clinical trials group funded by the National Cancer Institute, will participate in 32 presentations to be made at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world's largest clinical cancer research meeting, which runs June 2-6 in Chicago.
At ASCO 2017, SWOG investigators will report on trials involving treatment and prevention strategies for more than 10 cancer types, as well as research on health services, prevention and epidemiology, and care for cancer survivors. This crop of presentations at ASCO is the largest in nearly a decade. Of the 32 presentations, 20 are on SWOG-led trials.
"We've got an exceptionally strong showing at ASCO 2017," said SWOG Group Chair Dr. Charles Blanke. "Presentations show the depth and breadth of our expertise, as well as the benefits of running cancer trials for 60 years. Our group produces a very strong body of work."
Here are SWOG highlights at ASCO 2017:
Other presentations show SWOG's value as a publicly funded research network.
SWOG biostatistician Joseph Unger, Ph.D., of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, will present an analysis showing that Americans diagnosed with cancer gained 3.34 million years of life thanks to SWOG trials, and that the dollar return on investment is estimated to be just $125 for each life year gained. An abstract presented by Andrea Denicoff of the NCI's Clinical Therapy Evaluation Program details a new approach to insurance billing, pioneered by SWOG and now being piloted across the NCI's National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). The new system is expected to save hospitals, clinics, and other trial site staff thousands of hours and millions of dollars each year. SWOG members Connie Szczepanek and Marge Good along with SWOG staffer Casey Dawson are part of the pilot project and members of the study team.
Finally, SWOG investigators will contribute to the most high profile presentations at ASCO 2017. Cathy Eng of M.D. Anderson, SWOG's rectal cancer subcommittee co-chair, will be a discussant at the meeting's plenary session, where research with the highest merit is presented. A landmark colorectal cancer trial managed by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, SWOG's partner in the NCTN, with co-leadership by SWOG, is also the subject of three oral ASCO 2017 presentations. The trial, CALGB (Alliance) 80405, made big news a few years ago when results showed that the location of a colorectal cancer tumor - right side or left - has a significant impact on survival outcome. Because of the trial's size and rigor, it has spawned a raft of important follow-on findings.
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See http://swog.org/visitors/download/media/Abstracts%20ASCO%202017%20Table.pdf for a full list of SWOG abstracts for ASCO 2017.
SWOG is a global cancer research community of over 12,000 members in 47 states and six foreign countries who design and conduct publicly funded clinical trials. Since 1956, SWOG trials have led to the approval of 14 cancer drugs, changed more than 100 standards of cancer care, and saved more than 2 million years of human life. The group is a proud member of the National Cancer Institute's National Clinical Trials Network and the NCI Community Oncology Research Program, and is a major part of the cancer research infrastructure in the U.S. and the world. Headquartered at the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Ore., SWOG's statistics and data management center is based at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wash. and its operations office is located in San Antonio, Texas. The Hope Foundation, a public charity, supports SWOG's work. Learn more at swog.org.