Prospective clinical trials are used to evaluate therapeutic interventions. Because surgery is involved in the diagnosis, staging, and therapy of solid malignancies, active surgical leadership in these cancer studies is important. There are currently barriers to widespread surgical participation in clinical trials. This report defines the obstacles as well as documents efforts to overcome them and improve surgical quality assurance in cooperative group research. The surgical leadership of several clinical cooperative groups sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) were interviewed. Cooperative group reports were analyzed with respect to internal audits, quality assurance and activities of surgical monitoring committees. Minutes from meetings of the NCI's workshops on "Surgeons in Clinical Trials" were reviewed. Six concerns present impediments to surgical quality in clinical trials. To address these, substantive surgical leadership is being developed throughout the cooperative group system. Surgical co-principal investigators for institutions and protocols are being appointed. Uniform surgical standards and operative guidelines are being developed. Surgical data review occur at the local institution as well as through central audits and surgical monitoring committees. Coordinators in surgical data management are being trained. Surgical education is organized at cooperative group meetings and disseminated to the surgical community by seminars, workshops, audiovisual teaching sessions, and scientific publications. Surgeons are playing increasing leadership roles in the cancer trials performed by cooperative groups. Surgical leaders are dedicated to a broad-scale quality assurance effort. Enhanced surgical commitment, widespread clinical participation, and focused leadership should affect a high level of surgical quality care in clinical trials research.