The fundamental goal of the proposed Washington University/Siteman Cancer Center (WU/SCC) NCTN Lead Academic Participating Site UG1 is to 1) foster scientific leadership and mentorship in the NCTN, 2) participate in the development of NCTN therapeutic, correlative, and cancer control trials, and 3) maintain strong accrual to clinical trials across multiple disease sites, including those that are molecularly driven and those for rare cancers. WU/SCC investigators have a long history of enthusiastic participation in the former cooperative group program and continue to play key roles in the current NCTN program, specifically the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, and NRG Oncology. WU/SCC will have 5 UG1 co-Principal Investigators comprising the senior leadership team including Nancy L. Bartlett, MD (Professor, Medical Oncology), Benjamin Kozower, MD, MPH (Professor, Thoracic Oncology), David G. Mutch, MD (Professor, Gynecologic Oncology), Clifford Robinson, MD (Associate Professor, Radiation Oncology) and Barry A. Siegel, MD (Professor, Radiology). The WU/SCC senior leadership team is composed of three legacy members with extensive cooperative group and NCTN experience (Bartlett, Mutch and Siegel) and two new members (Robinson and Kozower) with experience in NCTN trial development. The entire leadership team is committed to providing guidance for an institution-wide NCTN UG1. WU/SCC has consistently demonstrated robust accrual to NCTN trials, accruing 848 patients between March 2014 and August 2017. During this same interval, 535 patients had biospecimens collected and 58 patients were accrued to advanced imaging studies. The strength of the WU/SCC genomics, proteogenomics, and molecular imaging programs in combination with the large institutional biorepositories position us to make significant and novel contributions to the scientific mission of the NCTN. WU/SCC investigators remain highly invested in NCTN translational and clinical research in AML, lymphoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, sarcoma, uterine cancer, molecular imaging, and radiation oncology. In addition, our large referral base and the substantial increase in new cancer cases seen at our center in the last 5 years will enhance our ability to accrue patients to nearly all disease site protocols, including rare tumors. This institution-wide UG1 will facilitate enhanced communication and collaboration among disease-site, translational, and modality specialists and improve our potential for contributions to the NCTN operation.
SCC is the only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Missouri and Southern Illinois and it is the leading oncology treatment facility within the St. Louis metropolitan area. Participation in the NCTN allows WU/SCC physicians to offer a broad range of clinical trials to patients with all types and stages of cancer and also provides an opportunity for investigators to confirm preliminary institutional findings regarding new cancer treatments, diagnostic tools, and prognostic markers in large numbers of patients.
