Patient Centered Outcomes Research Committee

The NRG Oncology Patient Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) Committee works to assess and improve patient–reported outcomes (PROs) in therapeutic and cancer control trials across NRG Oncology cancer disease site and non-disease site committees. The committee is critical to NRG’s mission of improving the lives of patients with localized and locally advanced malignancies. The PCOR committee confers with disease site investigators on study design and validated metrics related to PROs including: symptoms/toxicities, quality of life (QOL), host factors, comorbidity, survivorship, utilities, patient preferences and costs. PCOR works to harmonize metrics and time points within and across disease sites when appropriate and to minimize patient burden while maximizing endpoint assessments.

While PCOR primarily focuses on secondary endpoints in treatment trials, the committee works closely with the Cancer Prevention and Control (CPC) Committee to collaborate on study design and metrics as well as to prioritize endpoints funded by DCP. PCOR prioritizes resources by stringent committee review and by limiting secondary endpoints on randomized phase II treatment trials to only those that would assist in decision making for choosing the best arm or best metrics to move forward to phase III trials. The exception is rare tumors where the phase II may be the definitive trial and where PCOR will consider more extensive inclusion of outcomes. Prioritization in phase III trials focuses on hypothesis-driven endpoints with specific sample size calculations to ensure power to address the PCOR endpoints while minimizing resource utilization. 

This committee meets monthly.