Introduction toOutcomes Assessment in Cancer

ion, and table construction, as discussed below. The process of report generation and chapter preparation was an iterative one: research, initial manuscript drafts, group discussions, electronic communicationbetweeneditors and authors, revision and re-revision, and final editing. The three working group meetings (February 2001, December 2001, and December 2002) provided important opportunities for presentations, panel discussions, andsmall-groupsessions. Inaddition,eachCOMWG member was assigned to an “affinity group” consisting of COMWGmembers with allied methods or application interests, in order to promote interdisciplinary peer review and discussion. Throughout the period from early 2001 until the final assigned chapter was completed in 2004, the editors had both the responsibility and the remarkable opportunity to work closely with the other 32members of theCOMWG in anumber of respects. Beyond the initial designation of topic areas, this involvedtailoringquestionsets inresponse toauthor suggestions, reviewing chapter drafts, and working interactively through the multi-step review and editing process that led to the chapters found here.