Abstract
Biobanking metastases and biopsy specimens for personalized medicine Angen Liu, Charles C Collins, Stephanie M Diemer Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA Abstract: Metastasis often develops in cancer patients despite improvements in surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Biopsy specimens of metastatic lesions are extremely valuable materials for monitoring disease progression, assessing therapeutic outcome, and delivering personalized medicine. Biobanking high-quality human metastases and biopsy tissue specimens, derivatives, liquid biopsy specimens, and associated patient clinical information provides a fundamental scientific infrastructure for personalized medicine. Biomarkers specifically associated with an individual tumor have a very significant impact on personalized therapy. Therefore, the availability of a large collection of metastases and biopsy specimens from cancer patients with well-annotated patient clinical and pathological data is a critical requirement for personalized medicine. While current efforts have been made to develop cancer biorepositories around the world for personalized medicine, the majority of biospecimens in these biorepositories are primary tumor samples. The procurement, processing, and storage of human metastases and biopsy specimens remain challenging, since metastatic tumors are almost incurable and most are not the object of surgical resection. Thus, biobanking metastases and biopsy specimens provides a unique role to facilitate the molecular analysis of metastatic tumors, and the identification and validation of therapeutic targets and the discovery and validation of biomarkers that are associated with personalized treatment. This review provides an overview of the development of a metastases and biopsy specimens biobank, analyzes the challenges, and discusses the specific needs regarding this distinct type of biobank development for advancement of personalized medicine. Keywords: cancer, biospecimen, biorepository, pathology, liquid biopsy, clinical trial
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Journal of Biorepository Science for Applied Medicine
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
