The Tumour Bank at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead: An Australian Paediatric Cancer Biorepository

Abstract

The Tumor Bank at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead was established in 1998 with the purpose of facilitating research into childhood malignancy through the active provision of well annotated, ethically collected tissue samples and providing a pathway for the Children Hospital at Westmead to engage in leading research initiatives, supporting international investigations and clinical trials. Within 20 years practice as a single institute biorepository, The Tumour Bank has established standard operating procedures for collection of tissue, blood and bone marrow that were integrated into routine patient management systems. In addition, three main operational areas have been developed: collection of biospecimens and written consent; management of clinical data and biospecimen inventory database; and implementation of an open access policy to support childhood cancer research around the world. Regulatory oversight is provided by the Tumour Bank Committee, Human Research Ethics Committee and Governance Department. This concerted effort has resulted in collecting 20340 specimens from 3788 patients within 20 years, and The Tumour bank has supported over 108 national and international research projects, and contributed to over 70 peer-reviewed publications to date, with a mean time–to-publication of 19.1 ± 9.0 months and average Impact Factor of 6.11 ± 4.53. In conclusion, the Children’s Hospital at Westmead Tumour Bank has demonstrated a sustained single institutional biorepository model for facilitating translational research of rare cancer. It has provided strong evidence that integration of a single institutional biobank into standard clinical practices would be the long-term pathway of valuable bio-resource for rare cancer research.