The Iowa-Wide Oncology Research Coalition (I-WORC) is a multidisciplinary consortium of eighteen components and four sub-component performance sites comprised of nine hospitals including one designated children's hospital, eighteen gynecologic, medical, pediatric, radiation, and surgical oncology practices and 60 physicians. In addition to the operations office in Des Moines, the I-WORC has component sites located in four geographical regions in Iowa (Ames, Cedar Rapids, Mason City and Ottumwa) and one geographical region in Moline, IL. The majority of the I-WORC components have held memberships with several cooperative research bases for many years and have experience with clinical research through participation in the NCI Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP). I-WORC plans to affiliate with the following research bases: Alliance, ECOG-ACRIN, NRG, CCWF, and COG . The goals of I-WORC are: 1) Provide excellence in cancer care to patients and families through participation in high quality cancer research; 2) Support the goals and work of research bases with involvement of IWORC investigators, research staff, and patient populations; 3) Increase public and professional awareness of clinical trials through community outreach efforts and collaboration with other medical providers in the community; 4) Increase accrual in clinical studies by building on prior recruitment strategies implemented in previous cancer control/cancer prevention studies; 5) Develop strategies to increase clinical trial participation in minority groups and the underserved population in rural areas; 6) Collaborate with local health care institutions to increase participation in correlative and translational biospecimen studies; 7) Collaborate with local health care institutions to develop and expand participation in care care delivery studies.
The I-WORC has a proven track record as an efficient and disciplined team from six strategically located Iowa and Illinois communities. The coalition will serve as the link between NCI-approved cancer research and over two million people in the state of Iowa and the eastern portion of Illinois. The I-WORC will enthusiastically emphasize quality in its research efforts and collaborate with local resources to promote clinical trial participation, biospecimen collection and cancer care delivery research
| Henry, N Lynn; Unger, Joseph M; Schott, Anne F et al. (2018) Randomized, Multicenter, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial of Duloxetine Versus Placebo for Aromatase Inhibitor-Associated Arthralgias in Early-Stage Breast Cancer: SWOG S1202. J Clin Oncol 36:326-332 |
| McWilliams, Robert R; Foster, Nathan R; Mahoney, Michelle R et al. (2017) North Central Cancer Treatment Group N0543 (Alliance): A phase 2 trial of pharmacogenetic-based dosing of irinotecan, oxaliplatin, and capecitabine as first-line therapy for patients with advanced small bowel adenocarcinoma. Cancer 123:3494-3501 |
| Schild, Steven E; Hillman, Shauna L; Tan, Angelina D et al. (2017) Long-Term Results of a Trial of Concurrent Chemotherapy and Escalating Doses of Radiation for Unresectable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: NCCTG N0028 (Alliance). J Thorac Oncol 12:697-703 |
