| A Cancer Bank is literally a collection of tissue and blood which has been collected from patients where cancer is a possible diagnosis and is being stored to facilitate future research into cancer.
The development of more effective, targeted treatment for cancer depends on increased understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the initiation of the tumour, its progression to metastatic disease and response and resistance to treatment. Research studies depend on the availability of high quality biological material from patients with cancer and large studies are needed to correlate biology with clinical outcome.
The aims of the project are to provide a population based collection of
• blood and serum.
• paired samples of normal and tumour (both fresh frozen and paraffin blocks).
• blood samples from a control population (similar age and resident in the areas as the patients).
The project will approach all new patients with proven or suspected cancer and request tissue and blood samples, to be stored for future scientific analysis. The tissue that the Wales Cancer Bank (WCB) hopes to collect is tissue which will be removed during the patient's routine surgery and which would be left over after all the necessary diagnostic tests have been concluded. It is tissue that would normally be thrown away. Where possible blood samples will be taken at routine pre-operative sampling or permission will be sought to take the blood sample at another convenient time. Donation to the Wales Cancer Bank will not alter the treatment of the patient in any way. |
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Spouses or partners will also be asked to donate a blood sample, to provide a ‘control' sample matched for environmental exposure. The patient will be asked to approach their spouse/partner or friend with the information sheet and they will only be contacted by a WCB nurse following permission.
All biological samples taken will be labelled with an individual patient identification number, unrelated to any other patient identifier (e.g. NHS number, histology number etc) so researchers receiving the samples will not know the identity of the donor.
The Welsh population is relatively stable and this makes it an ideal cohort to collect and study. An all Wales clinical database (CANISC) is being developed, enabling good correlation of science with clinical follow-up. This will eventually enable the results from hundreds of research projects to be integrated and linked to clinical outcome and this will be an invaluable source of data for bioinformatics specialists to examine. All the data collected is being stored on a database housed in the NHS to ensure security and confidentiality.
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