The Cancer Therapy & Research Center has been named among the top 10 of the 990 institutions that are members of SWOG, an international network of researchers that design and conduct cancer clinical trials. The ranking is based on the number of patients currently involved in SWOG clinical trials.
Formerly called the Southwest Oncology Group, SWOG is one of the largest organizations that conducts cancer clinical trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health. With more than 6,000 physician-researchers, the network conducts clinical trials to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as to better the quality of life for cancer patients and survivors.
“CTRC has a long history of leading these trials as well as ensuring that patients from San Antonio and South Texas have the opportunity to participate in these critical, practice-changing studies. These studies involve not only medical therapies but new forms of radiation, as well as innovative surgical treatments,” said Ian M. Thompson Jr., M.D., CTRC director and professor of urology at the Health Science Center. The organization celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
“Other than our patients at the CTRC and from around the U.S. who are the real heroes, it is our very special research team at the CTRC that made this possible,” he said.
Michael Liss, M.D., assistant professor of urology in the School of Medicine, is the UT Health Science Center’s principal investigator for SWOG trials. For more information, contact Christina Spencer, research area specialist, for SWOG trials through the CTRC, at (210) 450-5960.