Establishing a Tumor Tissue Bank

Abstract

The extraordinary development of powerful screening methods to define molecular signatures from resected patient tissues is increasingly paving the way towards molecular staging concepts of tumors. However, the quality of resected patient tissues can dramatically influence the quality of results gained from molecular screening. In our experience, establishing and conducting a tumor bank is an interdisciplinary challenge requiring considerable effort from different disciplines (e.g. surgical and especially pathology departments) and personnel, specific equipment, consent of the patient, ethics approval, documentation, consideration of logistics, and continuous quality control. This article gives practical advice as to how to establish tumor tissue banking.