Downstate Medical Center, State University of New York is a member of the Radiation Oncology Group (RTOG) which is dedicated to conducting research on the premise that a cooperative approach to the design and implementation of clinical trials would be of significant benefit to a large patient population. Overall goals of RTOG are: to constitute a group of clinical radiation therapy investigative centers, to define clinical priorities for radiation therapy studies, to establish standardized treatment parameters, and to define radiation and ancillary equipment needs for clinical trials. Cooperative studies are undertaken to advance knowledge in the curative and palliative management of cancer. Conducting such investigations within individual centers is restrictive because of limited patient accrual. The pooling of patients by member institutions overcomes this limitation. Treatment protocols used by the RTOG are applicable to a variety of cancer sites and often include a multi-disciplinary approach combining radiation therapy, surgery and chemo-immuno therapy. Study protocols used to assess patient survival, tumor response, quality of survival and complications of treatment will be used to generate a data base for future studies and shorten the interval between the proposal of treatment options and the determination of therapeutic value.
