NRG Oncology PSC 2026 Winter Meeting Wrap Up

02/17/2026

Written by Laura Sorci, BS, CCRP, from Baystate Health

The Protocol Support Committee (PSC) would like to thank everyone who joined us for our winter meeting in San Francisco, CA. There were 104 in-person attendees and 295 virtual attendees at the PSC Nurse/CRA Continuing Education Session held on Thursday morning, January 22^nd, 2026. Our Discuss With Us – Live session early Thursday afternoon (for in-person attendees only) included 83 attendees. Closing out the day on Thursday was our Protocol Spotlight session, in which there were 60 in-person attendees and 76 virtual.

A special thanks to NRG Oncology for continuing to support a virtual option for our continuing education sessions. It is very valuable for those who cannot travel to be able to watch the presentations live and have their questions answered in real time. A huge thank you also goes out to our Education & Training subcommittee, led by Cynthia Licavoli, RN, BSN, MHA, Chair, Protocol Support Committee, and Vice-Chairs Marissa Weiss, MBA, BS, and Jacqueline Ludwig, RN, BSN, CCRP, for putting together this meeting’s content and inviting the speakers to present.

After an early morning welcome from Cynthia Licavoli and Jacqueline Ludwig, Thursday morning’s education session kicked off with Sharon Hartson Stine, MS, BA, who provided updates on NRG’s current operational status. Funding for our semi-annual meetings have endured a shortfall in recent years, and as a result NRG has instituted initiatives to reduce costs and improve revenue. Examples include eliminating video recording and streaming for most in-person sessions and scaling back on food and beverage offerings. They have also initiated a meeting registration fee for physicians and increased fees for non-member vendors. A commitment from NCI to grant funding for NRG has been received, however there is no indication of the funding amount, as we are still waiting for a notice of award.

Our next speaker, Sara McCartney, MS, RN, presented AE/SAE Reporting Updates. Key updates include changes to AE start/end date reporting requirements, a snapshot of the changes to the revised CTCAE v6 guidelines, requirements for AE reporting in streamlined clinical trials, a new NRG Adverse Event reporting module in CLASS, and a new CTEP policy which no longer requires the list of risks for commercial agents in informed consent forms. Look out for the implementation of these changes in current and future protocols.

Jenny Bayan, Protocol Coordinator for the Cancer Trials Support Unit (CTSU), presented updates to the CTSU website. The CTSU public website has been redesigned to streamline content and features a more modern aesthetic. Jenny then provided an overview of the Data Quality Portal (DQP) and gave tips, reminders, and answers to frequently asked questions. Lastly, she reviewed the new slot reservation process for the MYELOMATCH study.

Mary Jo Antonelli, MBA, MHA, presented quality assurance updates, with an overview of the purpose of the NRG Audit Program, what is reviewed, deficiency trends and helpful hints. She also reviewed CAPA development, audit expectations for streamlined trials, provided answers to frequently asked questions and helpful links to ensure a smooth audit process.

Cynthia Licavoli, RN, BSN, MHA, gave us an overview of the NRG Oncology Protocol Support Committee’s purpose, primary function and structure. She introduced PSC leadership and discussed the various PSC subcommittees and PSC liaisons. Our new PSC Discuss With Us programming has a new start time, now meeting live at 2:30pm EST. There is also a new OnDemand CE option, which started in Nov 2025, where attendees can earn CEs for attending live, or from watching the recording on their own time. Coming soon, CEs will also be available through our PSC Training Modules in CTSU CLASS. If you are interested in becoming a PSC committee member, the annual call for applicants will be sent in September 2026.

Nancy Fusco, RN, BSN, CCRP, presented an overview of the NRG Oncology Mentorship Subcommittee and introduced our current mentorship team. The mentorship committee has introductory materials for new coordinators available on the NRG website and enlists experienced volunteers from different research backgrounds to mentor CTNs and CRAs in need of direction while conducting NRG trials. They provide support to those who are new to clinical trials or those who may be experienced but new to NRG Oncology. If you would like to learn more about becoming a mentor, or would like to apply to be mentored, please see the Mentorship Programs link on the NRG website here: https://www.nrgoncology.org/About-Us/Mentorship-Programs/

Presenting the topic “Integrating Functional Medicine in Oncology Care: A Collaborative Approach to Whole-Person Healing” were Erik Modlo, MD, and Danille Modlo, APRN, CNP, from the Cleveland Clinic. In this talk we learned that the definition of functional medicine is a patient-centered, rather than disease-centered, approach that addresses the root cause(s) of the disease and not just the symptoms. Functional medicine includes evidence-based interventions to optimize function, which serves to complement (not replace) conventional oncology treatment. The 3 pillars of functional medicine are: 1. Optimizing healing through targeted nutrition, 2. Detoxification strategies, and 3. The emotional-psychological impact and its connection with nutrition. The speakers took us through the case study of patient Sarah, and how they implemented the 3 pillars of functional medicine into her treatment plan from pre-treatment through survivorship. The functional medicine field is one that may become the future of comprehensive care for our patients as more is learned about its benefits to cancer treatment.

Our last speaker of the morning was Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH, who presented “Moving Through Cancer: Exercise Benefits for Patients Currently Undergoing Treatment”. She introduced a series of cancer studies of different tumor types that demonstrated evidence suggesting that exercise may improve treatment tolerance (with some studies ongoing). These studies have demonstrated that exercise improves multiple symptoms and side effects of cancer treatment, including fatigue, physical function, QOL, anxiety, depression, bone health, lymphedema, sleep and body composition. The integration of exercise into a patient’s cancer treatment is another exciting way that we may be able to improve patient outcomes now and in the future.

Thursday’s first afternoon session was the PSC Discuss With Us – Live for our in-person participants. Facilitators Marissa Weis, MBA, and Jacqueline Ludwig, RN, BSN, CCRP, led the attendees through a series of pertinent topic discussions, which included onboarding and retention, biospecimen collection and QOL measures, trust with research patients, and research professionalism/integration for oncology care teams. Each topic was followed by a few questions meant to prompt group discussion among those at each table. After the small group discussions, attendees were asked to share their thoughts and experiences with the whole group. This fostered a genuine collaboration and exchange of ideas that participants could take back to their respective sites and share with their colleagues to improve best practices.

The final PSC session on Thursday was a Protocol Spotlight series. The purpose of this series is to highlight and promote specific and impactful protocols to a broader audience of research professionals. The protocols highlighted were NRG-GU015, NRG-HN014 and NRG-CC014. Scott E. Delacroix, Jr., MD, FACS, FSUO presented NRG-GU015, “A Randomized Phase III Trial with Adaptive Radiation and Chemotherapy for Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer (ARCHER)”. Trisha Wise-Draper, MD, presented NRG-HN014, “A Randomized Phase III Trial of Neoadjuvant Immunotherapy with Response-Adapted Surgery Versus Standard of Care Surgery for Resectable Stage III/IV Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma (CSCC)”. Jonathan Yan, MD PhD presented NRG-CC014, “Radiation Therapy for High-Risk Asymptomatic Bone Metastases: A Pragmatic Multicenter Randomized Phase III Clinical Trial (PREEMPT)”. The background and rationale of these trials was discussed, along with the study objectives, key inclusion/exclusion criteria, and the clinical implications of the intervention being studied. Please consider opening and enrolling in these important studies! Study documents are available on CTSU.gov.

Thank you to the speakers for sharing your time and expertise during Thursday’s sessions. Your effort and preparation to provide updates and present valuable new information to the attendees is greatly appreciated!

If you were unable to attend Thursday’s sessions or would like to review any of the topics recapped above, the slides for each presentation are available on the NRG website here: https://www.nrgoncology.org/meetings/2026-winter-nrg-meeting/agenda-program/ (login required). If you have a question or are in search of more information on a topic, the contact details for each presenter are available in their respective presentation.

The Protocol Support Committee obtained approval for continuing education contact hours through the Virginia Nursing Association for all sessions given on Thursday. Attendees are reminded to complete their evaluations (links to evaluations were emailed to each attendee who signed in). All evaluations must be submitted by February 13^th, 2026. Certificates from completed evaluations will be emailed February 19^th, 2026.

Our next NRG Oncology Semiannual meeting will be held July 16-18^th, 2026 in Denver, CO. We hope you can all attend! If you have any suggestions regarding topics of interest that you would like to have presented at a future meeting, please email NRG-PSC@nrgoncology.org. Your input is highly valued and welcomed!