Southwest Oncology Group is now 'SWOG'

The Southwest Oncology Group is now simply "SWOG."

The National Cancer Institute (NCI)-supported clinical trial cooperative group has used the acronym "SWOG" informally for decades. Now it's formal.

"The group was founded in Texas in 1956 and for many years had a membership heavily concentrated in the southwest U.S.," says SWOG Chair Laurence Baker, D.O. "But for several decades now we've been a national organization and in recent years even international, so continuing to refer to ourselves as the 'southwest' oncology group was misleading."

"It's what most of the research world and many of the patients who participate in our trials already know us as," he points out.

Leading cancer research. Together.
A survey of the group's membership of almost 9,000 research professionals resulted in a new tag line to go along with the name change. The tag line succinctly conveys what SWOG does and how it does it: Leading cancer research. Together.

"'Together' is key," says Baker. "The cooperative groups invented team science, and this team approach, with investigators and member sites spread all over the U.S. and beyond, is the secret to our success."