Structure of NCI Cooperative Groups Program Prior to NCTN

Few major changes were made to the Cooperative Group Program since it was first begun in the 1950s. Over the past 5 years, the Institute of Medicine and other expert committees carefully reviewed the Cooperative Group Program and concluded that with 10 decentralized groups (nine adult group and one pediatric), each with its own operations and statistical centers, tissue banks, and other scientific support services, it needed to become more efficient and collaborative, and restructured to fulfill the promise of precision cancer medicine.