SWOG (formerly the Southwest Oncology Group) is a

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

(NCI) supported organization that conducts

clinical trials Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, dietar ...

in adult

cancers Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Poss ...

. Comprising more than 4,000 cancer researchers at more than 650 institutions across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, it is one of the largest of the NCI's clinical trial cooperative groups. Member institutions include 24 of the NCI-designated cancer centers, many university medical centers, private institutions, and Community Clinical Oncology Programs. SWOG is headquartered at the

Oregon Health & Science University Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is a public research university focusing primarily on health sciences with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland, Oregon. The institution was founded in 1887 as the University of Oregon Medi ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, with an operations office in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

and a statistical center in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

. SWOG was created by the NCI in 1956 as the Southwest Cancer Chemotherapy Study Group (SWCCSG) and was headquartered in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. Its primary purpose was to study

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

, a cancer of the blood which primarily affects children. Then in 1958, the NCI directed the SWCCSG to include the study of adult cancers, and separate administrative divisions were created for pediatric and adult cancers. The group's name was eventually changed to Southwest Oncology Group to reflect its new mission. Although in its early decades most SWOG member institutions were located in the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

, the group spread to include members all over the

and

. In 2010, in recognition of this national scope, the group dropped the regional qualifier from its name and adopted the acronym, SWOG, as its official name.

Quality Assurance

SWOG has all of its protocol-driven cases reviewed at the Quality Assurance Review Center (QARC). As mandated by the

(NCI), every

radiotherapy Radiation therapy or radiotherapy, often abbreviated RT, RTx, or XRT, is a therapy using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cells and normally delivered by a linear accelerator. Radia ...

(RT) department participating in a SWOG study submits their data to QARC for review. QARC is located in

Lincoln, Rhode Island Lincoln is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 22,529 at the 2020 census. Lincoln is located in northeastern Rhode Island, north of Providence. Lincoln is part of the Providence metropolitan statistical are ...

and reviews thousands of RT cases per year. The center was founded in 1977 as a not-for-profit health care organization designed to provide quality assurance for

CALGB Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB; former name: Acute Leukemia Group B, ALGB) is a cancer research cooperative group in the United States. CALGB research is focused on seven major disease areas: leukemia, lymphoma, breast cancer, lung cancer, ...

studies. Radiotherapy data from around one-thousand

hospitals A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

in both the

and abroad is reviewed and archived at QARC. Another center for quality assurance is the Radiological Physics Center (RPC) in

. The primary responsibility of the RPC is to assure the

(NCI) and its cooperative groups like SWOG that all participating institutions are following the basic guidelines regarding the physics-related aspects of radiotherapy. Established in 1968, the RPC has consistently received funding from the NCI in order to perform the aforementioned mission.

External links

SWOG website

National Cancer Institute

National Institutes of Health

NCI Clinical Trials Cooperative Groups program

Quality Assurance Review Center

Radiological Physics Center
{{authority control Cancer organizations based in the United States Medical research institutes in the United States Clinical trial organizations Medical and health organizations based in Oregon Children's Oncology Group Research institutes in Oregon