The National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) is the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) nationwide clinical trials for developing and evaluating new approaches to cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and control. Through the NCTN, cancer research groups, academic centers, and community oncology site collaborate to design and conduct large, multisite clinical trials within a shared framework for scientific review, oversight, and data quality.
Driving innovation through the NCTN
The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology is one of the NCTN’s core research groups. Through a network of more than 100 main institutions and nearly 1,500 affiliated sites in the United States and Canada, Alliance investigators design and conduct clinical trials that address important questions in cancer care, reach broad patient populations, and generate evidence that cancer inform clinical practice.
The NCTN gives Alliance investigators the infrastructure and national reach to conduct large-scale clinical trials efficiently and enroll broad patient populations. The Alliance contributes scientific expertise, an investigator network, and clinical trial capabilities to the NCTN, helping generate the rigorous evidence needed to evaluate new approaches and inform cancer care. The NCTN’s clinical research is conducted through five U.S. clinical trial groups:
- Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology
- ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group
- NRG Oncology
- SWOG Cancer Research Network
- Children’s Oncology Group (COG)
The NCTN also collaborates with the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG).
Centralized NCTN resources support efficient, consistent clinical trial conduct across participating institutions and research groups.
The Cancer Trials Support Unit (CTSU) provides centralized administrative and operational support for NCTN clinical trials, including study registration, regulatory requirements, patient enrollment, and access to trial information and documents.
The NCI Central Institutional Review Board (CIRB) provides centralized ethical review for applicable NCI-sponsored clinical trials promoting consistent protections for research participants while reducing duplicative review across participating institutions.
Lead Academic Participating Sites (LAPS) within the NCTN include NCI-Designated Cancer Centers and other major academic institutions that provide scientific leadership and participate in the development and conduct of clinical trials. Together with the community oncology sites, LAPS extend the NCTN’s clinical research infrastructure across varied care settings and help bring clinical trials to patients nationwide.
Through the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP), the Alliance brings clinical trials to community oncology settings, expanding opportunities for patients to participate in research closer to home. This network can help reduce barriers to participation, including the need to travel to major academic medical centers.
Decades of Alliance clinical trials have generated extensive clinical data and biospecimens that can support research well beyond the original studies. The Alliance maintains integrated biorepository resources and data-sharing resources that enable approved investigators to access eligible clinical trial data and biospecimens for additional research. Through the NCTN Navigator, investigators can explore available NCTN biospecimens and submit requests for eligible resources.
These resources allow researchers to build on completed trials, validate new hypotheses, investigate biomarkers, and pursue scientific questions that extend beyond the scope of the original studies.
The Alliance’s clinical research depends on more than investigators and research participants. It also requires the infrastructure, expertise, and resources needed to conduct complex, collaborative studies,
The Alliance Clinical Trials Foundation strengthens this foundation by investing in the people, systems. and initiatives that advance the Alliance’s scientific mission. This support creates opportunities to purse important questions, conduct rigorous studies, share knowledge, and translate discoveries into better cancer care.
Together, the Alliance and the Alliance Foundation sustain the people and infrastructure needed to turn scientific discovery into evidence that can improve care for people with cancer.