WOO SERIES - How do WOOs contribute to research – individually and collectively, why are they valuable?

The WOO study design has increasingly become part of drug development. WOO trials exploit the ‘window’ of time after cancer diagnosis, typically prior to initiation of cancer therapy (usually surgery with curative intent). In presurgical WOO trials, patients with treatment naïve or early- stage disease are treated for a brief “window” period with a novel therapy followed by surgical resection. Unlike neoadjuvant trials, “window” period is kept short (a few weeks) to ensure the that surgery is not delayed.