This is a renewal application for the support of the Western Division (WD) of the Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN) to continue 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. In our first year, we were the smallest, least experienced, and least productive branch of the CHTN. Our rate of distribution of samples to investigators has grown regularly. During the last quarter of 1994 and the first quarter of 1995, we sent 5654 samples to investigators, i.e., we distributed specimens at an annualized rate of 11,308 samples/year. Samples shipped to investigators have been 34.9% malignant tissues, 64.1% normal and benign tissues. More than 90% of samples have come from the two components of University Hospitals (UH) of Cleveland (Lakeside Hospital and Rainbow, Babies, and Childrens Hospital). While we have exceeded more than two-fold the 15 samples/workday that we predicted we would be able to send to investigators in our proposal in 1990, we could have provided many more samples if our supply of personnel and expendables had not become limiting. Our distribution of tissues to investigators increased 112% between 1991 and 1992; 35%, 1992 and 1993; and 105%, 1993 and 1994. This trend continued with a 118% increased distribution of samples in the last quarter of 1994 compared with the first quarter of 1994. In hospitals that have agreed to cooperate within a ten-mile radius of our laboratory, there are annually 130,000 surgical specimens resected and 1517 autopsies. The numbers increase through an 80-mile radius over which pathologists have agreed to assist us (302,300 surgical specimens). As resources permit, we want to maximize our use of UH and then focus on nearby hospitals where our personnel can be responsible for maintaining the quality of the tissue from the operating room, to the pathologist in those hospitals, to the CHTN laboratory. In addition to the improved quality that is available from the use of our personnel who are especially aware of the needs of investigators, our personnel will have access to our computer-managed database; this will result in much greater efficiency than we could obtain by having remotely located personnel in the other hospitals. The regularly increasing efficiency and productivity that have come from experience and from generous advice and help from other divisions of the CHTN can be used to take advantage of the excellent array of still unused clinical materials in our hospital and in neighboring hospitals.
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