Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank (ABCTB)

Introduction

The Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank (ABCTB) was established following the award of an Enabling Grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC) in late 2004 and has since attracted additional funding via competitive grant schemes from the Cancer Institute of New South Wales and the National Breast Cancer Foundation (Australia).

The Tissue Bank is headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales and there is central management of funds, data and material collected.

Donors are recruited at 8 networked collection centers across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and are based around hospital and academic centers with high case loads of breast cancer patients. Locations are at: Westmead/Western Sydney; North Shore/Northern Sydney; St Vincent's Hospital/Eastern Sydney; Newcastle/Hunter area; Royal Prince Alfred Hospital/Central Sydney; Port Macquarie/NSW North Coast; Liverpool/South Western Sydney; and Canberra/ACT.

Each collection center receives an agreed portion of operating funds in line with the number of cases collected at that site. Tumor bank officers work for the ABCTB, using the collection center funding allocations for salaries but have employment contracts with each relevant local institution. Each collection center has local oversight and a representative from each site sits on the ABCTB Executive Committee. Local institutions do not contribute to operational costs but do provide infrastructure and in kind support.

Standard operating procedures have been developed and are used across all collection centers and a minimum data set for clinical and specimen information is entered into a central database (Caisis). Restrictions are placed on data base users such that they only have access to donors recruited at their own collection sites. Specimens are stored locally with duplicates being routinely transferred to one of the other sites or the central hub to insure against any local catastrophes.

Data management, ongoing improvement/development and other database services (security, back up etc) are managed by the central management hub. Collection centers input data via a secure web link, and a central auditing process of records has also been developed.

A central processing laboratory has been established where DNA/RNA extractions are performed plus any histological processing, TMA construction and routine digital scanning of tumor sections.

Applications to the ABCTB are open to all researchers worldwide and a web-based search engine for researchers looking for suitable material is available via the website www.abctb.org.au. Applications are made electronically using an online system developed by the ABCTB (the eBAS) and are managed by the central hub. When supplying projects, material is called in to the central hub and the cohort assembled for dispatch.

Challenges for the next decade include long-term collection of clinical follow-up data on an ever-increasing cohort of donors. In order to divert resources into this critical area, expenditure on recruitment and collection of material on new donors will have to be reduced, unless further funding streams can be procured.