There has been concern about the possibility of an increase in cancer incidence among the World Trade Center (WTC) responders. However, it is known that most cancers become manifest only one or more decades after carcinogenic exposure;additionally, the WTC cohort was relatively young at the time it was assembled, therefore its absolute cancer risk was low. The tenth anniversary of 9/11 marks a significant landmark for studies on cancer occurrence in this population, since the time frame after the exposure (10 years) is becoming etiologically relevant for cancer, and the cohort is aging, thus entering a time in life when cancer becomes a more frequent event. There is now a need to supplement the current epidemiologic cancer follow-up with a cancer tissue bank;biospecimen resources and their clinical annotations are among some of the most powerful resources fueling translational research. We propose to implement a tissue bank system for the WTC newly diagnosed cancers, focused on advancing the understanding of the biology of the tumors that occurred after the WTC disaster. This project proposes to initiate and manage a central repository of cancer tissue samples and adjacent normal tissue from each solid cancer diagnosed among the WTC Health Program (WTCHP) participants. Relevant information from pathology and cytology reports from each cancer will also be centrally stored. This repository will have the capability to be linked in the future with the main WTCHP data set containing clinical, epidemiological and exposure information collected from the participants at the time of inclusion in the WTCHP and during the regularly performed follow up. The clinical data base also contains information on cancer outcome. RNA, DNA and tissue microarrays (TMA) will be prepared from each tissue sample. These samples will be made available for future biomarkers studies, studies of gene-environment interaction, as well as genomics and methylation studies. Specific analyses, such as immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, DNA ploidy analysis, nuclear morphometry, and fluorescent in situ hybridization will also be possible on the stored samples. We will establish the tissue bank as a resource for the scientific community, by defining a process for qualified applicants to request available samples for research use, and for linkage with the epidemiologic and clinical information in the database. A plan for the evaluation of the tissue bank usage and success, as measured by publications and funding obtained by investigators using the samples, is also included. The tissue bank will represent the necessary infrastructure for addressing questions such as the link between specific carcinogens exposures and certain cancer sites, molecular signatures of exposure that could be linked to cancer, specific markers of tumor aggressiveness among WTC responders. This will ultimately impact the modalities of treatment, and the probability of success and survival of these patients.
There has been concern about the possibility of increased cancer incidence among the World Trade Center (WTC) responders. There is a need to supplement the current epidemiologic cancer follow-up of WTC responders with a cancer tissue bank. We propose to implement a tissue bank system for the WTC newly diagnosed cancers. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The tissue bank will represent the necessary infrastructure for addressing questions such as the link between specific carcinogens exposures and certain cancer sites, molecular signatures of exposure that could be linked to cancer, specific markers of tumor aggressiveness among WTC responders. This will ultimately impact the modalities of treatment, and the probability of success, and survival of these patients.
| Lieberman-Cribbin, Wil; Tuminello, Stephanie; Gillezeau, Christina et al. (2018) The development of a Biobank of cancer tissue samples from World Trade Center responders. J Transl Med 16:280 |
