Group Meeting Returns to the Windy City

Online registration is closed right now, but you can register in person next week at the Hyatt, and registration for participating virtually will reopen on Tuesday. So if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, it’s not too late!

If you are headed to Chicago, though, just remember to bring your proof of vaccination (with booster) and your mask, please.

If you’re still on the fence about attending, here are ten great reasons to do it.

• This meeting will feature the inaugural Nicholas J. Vogelzang Symposium. The symposium topic this time is organ preservation in bladder cancer, and Dr. Vogelzang’s brother, Dr. Robert L. Vogelzang, will attend and will deliver a brief message Nick composed for this purpose in late August.
   
• The SWOG Clinical Trials Partnerships update forum will offer us advance glimpses of CTP trials in late development. CTP’s executive review committee just this week approved the third clinical trial to be developed under its Preferred Partnership, which conducts scientifically compelling trials for which sufficient federal funding is not available. The first of those CTP trials should launch early in the new year, and CTP has begun reaching out to SWOG sites to give them a heads up. Learn more at the CTP update forum Wednesday. 
   
• Enhancing the diversity of our trial participant populations is listed as an agenda topic by a number of committees. Examples include a mini symposium on the subject in our breast committee open session and a presentation in our cancer care delivery committee on a decision aid intervention to promote trial diversity. Our recruitment and retention committee will also host the fourth in their series of educational TAKE ACTION symposia, this one on ensuring equity in clinical research for Hispanic/Latinx populations.
   
• As always, our keynote Thursday event will be Plenary I, with a translational medicine focus. Among several great presentations, it will include an update on research by one of our Coltman Fellows and a talk on using artificial intelligence to aid cancer trial enrollment.
   
• Last spring’s meeting featured a symposium on how advanced practice providers can enhance clinical research. Next week, we take it to the next level, with a three-hour workshop Wednesday morning on the essentials advanced practice providers need to know to provide safe care to patients on cancer trials. As with so much else at our group meeting, this event wouldn’t be possible without funding from The Hope Foundation for Cancer Research.
   
• Friday’s general plenary will feature presentations on the three NCI MATCH precision medicine protocols now on the launch pad, and other kickoff sessions will also cover these trials.
   
• Much of the leukemia committee’s Saturday morning open session will be devoted to educating members about the details of activating and conducting MyeloMATCH.
   
• A chunk of the immunotherapeutics committee’s open session on Wednesday will similarly function as a kickoff for the ImmunoMATCH pilot study – the S2101 BiCaZO trial. 
   
• We will have our traditional update forum on Lung-MAP, but the big excitement may be the Lung-MAP presentation we’ll see at Plenary II – a presentation that should include reference to something that just might change the way the cooperative group system does research. Don’t miss it!
   
• Not only is there an embarrassment of opportunities in the agenda book for next week’s meeting, you can even earn continuing medical education (CME) credits for many of the sessions you attend. A total of 33.5 credits are possible, so why not complete the needed paperwork and get the credit? Visit the Hope/SWOG CME certification page, answer the program evaluation questions linked from there, and enter the sessions for which you’re claiming credits.

I love Chicago and am excited at the prospect of holding our SWOG meeting there once again. But remember that the COVID-19 that kept us away from Chicago for our last few fall meetings is still a threat, particularly to the immunocompromised patients so many of us regularly care for. Please wear a mask while in indoor public spaces at the meeting. 

Have a wonderful and memorable meeting. I look forward to seeing you there!