February

Below is a statement from all five of the US NCTN Group Chairs, including myself, regarding the significance of our collective work resulting from NIH funding. We believe our unity of purpose will be more effective as a consequence of acting jointly.

Doug Hawkins, COG Group Chair

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

The Cooperative Groups that come together in the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) are responsible for a number of significant advances in cancer treatment arising over the past 40 years. In that time, as published by Unger et al (J Clin Oncol, 2023), this research has led to an estimated 14 million life-years saved for patients with cancer, in an incredibly cost-effective manner ($326 per life-year saved). In communities and cancer centers across the land, Cooperative Group trials are continually changing standards of care and providing much needed treatment options for patients. As Chairs of the US Cooperative Groups, we are grateful for NIH and NCI funding that has made this lifesaving work possible and concerned about the impact of the proposed changes in their budgets. We encourage you to emphasize and promote the significance of our collective work in public discourse.

Policymakers should be aware of the contributions of our research to local economies.  A guide to this is provided by NIH: In fiscal year 2023, every $1 of NIH funding generated approximately $2.46 of economic activity. The multiplier is well-recognized, creates employment, and is a key factor behind the extensive availability of cutting-edge, practice-changing trials. It is important to emphasize that our work has a patient-centered focus. We rely on patients to help set research priorities, as part of our commitment to reducing the side effects of treatment and improving the patients’ quality of life.

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) this week issued a statement of concern, as well as a call to action. We are providing a link to the full statement here to invite our members to engage in informing legislators about the critical importance of NIH and NCI’s mission, and that progress against cancer is being made in nearly every congressional district. It is essential that we advocate for widespread support of the Cooperative Groups' efforts in providing treatment options to cancer patients throughout the US. Please follow this link to the AACR statement, which includes a button to allow you to send comments to your representative.

On behalf of:

Alliance for Cancer Trials in Oncology: Eva Galanis, MD

Children’s Oncology Group: Douglas Hawkins, MD

ECOG-ACRIN: Peter O’Dwyer, MD and Mitch Schnall, MD, PhD

NRG Oncology Group: Quynh-Thu Le, MD, Robert Mannel, MD, and Norman Wolmark, MD

SWOG: Charles Blanke, MD

2024

November

On Sunday, November 17 between 9 am – 5 pm (PT), the COG IT department will conduct important maintenance on COG systems. During this time-period, all COG applications and databases will be intermittently unavailable for use by COG Members and COG staff.

This includes, but is not limited to, the following applications and services:

• Patient registration in OPEN, enrollment, callback, manual treatment assignments and study data entry in eRDES/OPEN.
• All COG Web and desktop applications (e.g., COG Member Web site, Manuscript Review, Research Administration Portal, COG Reports (SSRS), ProCon, SMR, Study Manager etc.)
  

Note: Data entry in Medidata Rave will not be affected during this maintenance except Pediatric MATCH candidate treatment assignment by MRC

Please download the attached specimen transmittal forms in the event it is necessary for you to collect and ship specimens during the outage.

It is important that you refrain from using the COG applications, please plan accordingly to ensure business continuity during this time-period.

2020