The purpose of the proposed project is to obtain tumors and other tissues and (a) make them available in a form (frozen fresh, minced in sterile culture medium, etc.) specified by cancer researchers and of as high quality as possible while (b) assuring that the tissues distributed have been very thoroughly characterized diagnostically. The pathologists who will run this service include Dr. K. DeSchryver, the newly arrived Head of Anatomic Pathology (includes both surgical and autopsy pathology) at CWRU; Dr. F. W. Abdul-Karim, a pathologist who is and has been since its inception Co-Director of the current Tissue Conservation Core Facility (TisCon CF) at CWRU; and Dr. T. G. Pretlow, the Principal Investigator and Co-Director for the TisCon CF at CWRU. Dr. Pretlow has started and run two such services in cancer centers at CWRU (1987-1990) and at the Univ. of Ala. at Birmingham (1978-1983). All three of these pathologists function in both surgical and autopsy pathology at CWRU. As will be apparent from their lists of publications, they use human tissues for research. All have a need for this service for their research, understand the importance of quality of tissue obtained for research, and understand the need to satisfy diagnostic requirements with the highest possible standards. CWRU offers several tactical advantages as a location for this service: (a) there is at CWRU a large hospital for children and a large hospital for adults both of which have large oncology services; (b) within a 2-mile radius of CWRU, there is an almost unique availability of large amounts of tissues in a small geographical area in several neighboring hospitals that have agreed to participate, i.e., almost 80,000 surgical specimens/year and 1,100 autopsies/year within a 2-mile radius; (c) within a 10-mile radius, there are over 130,000 surgical specimens in hospitals that have agreed to cooperate; (d) within successively larger radii, there are much larger numbers of surgically resected tissues in hospitals that have agreed to cooperate (more than 300,000 surgically resected tissues) if the need for rare tumors is not satisfied by closer hospitals; (e) among these hospitals, there are 3 childrens hospitals and other hospitals with pediatric oncology services; and (f) there is a geographically based cancer registry that covers all of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland and contiguous suburbs) that has an excellent record of follow-up of cancer patients for many years. Most of the physicians and pathologists at the hospitals within a radius of 0-2 miles have appointments at the medical school and col- laborate with the medical school in teaching and in the care of patients.
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