SWOG Spring Meeting Under Discussion

The SWOG Cancer Research Network executive team met by conference call this morning to discuss whether to cancel our spring meeting, scheduled for April 22-25 in San Francisco, due to the new coronavirus.

We don’t have a decision to share at this time. But I can assure you that prudence and practicality – not panic – drove today’s discussion among our executive officers and senior staff. First and foremost, of course, are the health and safety of our members and the patients they serve. People with cancer are at higher risk for complications from the new coronavirus. Besides being immune-suppressed from their tumors and treatment, many patients with cancer are older and have other co-morbidities – all factors that increase the risk of serious symptoms and even death from COVID-19.

This is why several cancer centers have issued travel bans. These include Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Columbia University Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. So have some community medical organizations like Kaiser. This means that if the bans hold through April, many SWOG leaders, members, and speakers cannot attend the group meeting.

Our team also discussed the current state of the virus, and the response to it. There are more than 40 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Francisco and California have declared states of emergency. In addition, IBM, Google, Facebook, and Intel have in recent days cancelled major spring conferences in San Francisco.

At the same time, SWOG group meetings are vital to our conducting meaningful research and developing new proposals. Meetings are where so much of our work gets done – new trials are kicked off, new policies and programs are discussed and decided on, new ideas get hatched…….you get the picture. As well, so much critical clinical and scientific information is exchanged – across conference tables, over dinner tables, and in countless beer and coffee meetings.

We can’t recreate those moments, or the plenary talks and special sessions. But we can – thanks to technology – keep some of the work advancing. Should we cancel our meeting, we will explore every option to conduct our committee work virtually, and get the results out to membership in a fulsome manner.

I expect to have a final decision for you early next week about the fate of the spring meeting. You’ll receive a special edition of the Front Line. Please also watch the homepage of SWOG.org and our Twitter account for news.

You have my sincere apologies for this unusual turn of events, and for the extensive discussion it has spawned. Deciding what to do with our most important annual event is not easy! I thank you for your patience, and I offer you all my best wishes for your good health.