PS1-23: Capitalizing on the HMO Cancer Research Network (CRN): The Optimal Setting to Conduct Studies of Rare Complex Diseases

Abstract

Background/Aims Rare cancers are challenging to study, both epidemiologically and clinically, as it is difficult to ascertain enough cases to achieve adequate statistical power or to be representative of a vast range of exposures. Further, as the complexity of unraveling the natural history of disease has increased, a large investigator team with diverse expertise is required to optimize the scientific contributions that can be mined from research projects. The HMOCRN provides a setting that can overcome these barriers. Although many studies evaluate all lymphomas combined, lymphoma consists of over 50 rare histological subtypes with varying incidence and survival rates and epidemiological features. Ideally, each histological subtype should be considered separately in etiological studies, but even the most common, diffuse large B cell lymphoma, has a SEER incidence of only 7.5 per 100,000 in men and 5.0 per 100,000 in women. Other lymphoma types range in incidence from <0.1 cases per 100,000 for NKT cell lymphoma to 2.8 per 100,000 for Hodgkin’s Disease in all race-sex groups combined, to the highest rate found for a population subgroup, only 8.8 per 100,000 for multiple myeloma in African American men.